V  2t». 


THE  LIBRARY 
OF 

THE  UNIVERSITY 

OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


^Sx. 


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Poetry  and 
The  Individual 

An  Analysis  of  the  Imaginative  Life  in  Relation 

to  the  Creative  Spirit  in 

Man  and  Nature 


By 

Hartley  Burr  Alexander 

Ph.D.  (Columbia) 


17  •yap  TpoycuJia  fiLixijuii  i<TTiv  ovik  aiBpuniov 
aKXa  Trpd^eus  Ka'i  pCov  6  Se  jSi'os  if  npa^ei  iiniv 
Kal  TO  Te'Ao?  Trpd^t's  Tis  i<niv,  oil  ttoiotijs. 


G.  P.  Putnam's  Sons 

New   York  and  London 

Xlbc  1knic\\cxboc\{cv  ipress 

1906 


f 


Copyright,  1906 

BY 

HARTLEY  BURR  ALEXANDER 


Ube  f(nic{{erbochet  press,  tlevo  J^ocft 


TO 


HARRY   KIRKE   WOLFE 


IN   MEMORY   OF   INSPIRING   INSTRUCTION 
IN  TOKEN  OF  STEADFAST  FRIENDSHIP 


PREFACE 

THE  word  Idealism  has  two  very  different 
meanings  in  modern  thought.  On  the  one 
hand,  there  is  the  more  popular  and  intelligible 
meaning  in  which  it  signifies  belief  in  patterns  or 
types  governing  human  conduct  as  goals  of  en- 
deavour though  never  perfect  in  realisation — the 
sense  in  which  it  stands  for  faith  in  ideals.  On 
the  other,  there  is  the  more  recondite  and  meta- 
physical meaning  in  which  it  designates  the 
philosophical  theory  that  the  essential  nature  of 
the  world  is  of  a  kind  with  human  conscious- 
ness, that  the  truth  of  reality  is  embodied  ideas. 

Both  of  these  conceptions  hark  back  to  Plato. 
But  with  Plato  they  have  no  such  mutual  dis- 
tinction as  in  modern  thought.  With  him  the 
ethical  consciousness  was  too  keen,  the  moral  and 
aesthetic  motives  too  lively,  to  be  even  partially 
obscured  in  his  apprehension  of  the  cosmos  as  a 
whole.  The  Ideas  which  he  conceived  as  forming 
the  pattern  and  governance  of  the  world  are  es- 
sentially Ideals,  and  the  Supreme  Idea  is  the 
Good. 

Now  it  is  a  fact,  however  unpalatable,  that, 
despite  advantages  in  the  way  of  historical  and 


VI 


Preface 


scientific  acquisition,  the  teachings  of  modern 
idealists  have  less  vital  effectiveness  than  has  the 
philosophy  of  Plato  ;  they  touch  life  with  a  less 
quick  touch  and  so  fail  of  inspiration  or  enthusi- 
asm. The  reason  seems  plain:  it  is  their  cultiva- 
tion of  intellectual  subtleties  to  the  neglect  of  the 
practical  idealisjn  which  their  thought  should 
really  contain. 

The  philosophical  need,  then,  is  Immanisation 
of  philosophical  interests,  and  it  is  gratifying  to 
note  that,  on  the  whole,  the  younger  thought  of 
the  time  takes  its  bent  in  this  direction.  The 
book  here  offered  aims  by  a  sort  of  natural  criti- 
cism to  lay  bare  some  of  the  instinctive  modes  of 
human  thought  and  so  to  assist  the  major  philo- 
sophical task.  It  is  no  ambitious  metaphysic 
that  is  essayed.  All  that  the  author  hopes  to  give 
is  a  one  man's  thinking  through  of  one  depart- 
ment of  human  experience.  The  department  is 
that  in  which  the  idealising  motive  is  most  mani- 
fest, in  the  poetic  instinct,  in  appreciation  of 
beauty:  yet  if  it  should  be  shown  how  this  is  the 
dominant  of  human  life,  working  to  the  manifes- 
tation of  a  best  humanity,  therein  should  be  im- 
plied the  extension  of  the  idealism  throughout 
life's  whole. 

It  is  an  agreeable  duty  to  acknowledge  for  the 
work  not  only  the  encouragement,  but  the  great 
helpfulness  in  criticism  and  suggestion,  of  the 
author's  friends,  Dr.  Ferris  Greenslet,  and  Mr. 
William  B.  Parker  and  Professor  Alvin  S.  John- 


Preface  vii 

son  of  Columbia  University.  Such  indebtedness 
can  never  be  adequately  represented  by  the  out- 
ward acknowledgment  which,  slight  as  its  expres- 
sion may  be,  must  yet  issue  from  the  abundance 
of  the  felt  gratitude. 


SpRiNGifiEi^D,  Mass., 
December  i,  1905. 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

Introductory i 

Chapter  I.— Impui,se  and  Song         ...         7 


I.  Poetic  Mood 

II.  Poetic  Attitude  and  Essence 

Chapter  II. — Evoi,ution  of  Poetic  Spirit  . 

I.  Its    Social    Context  :    Its  Individual    Sig 
nificauce    ...... 

II.  Poetry  as  Divination  of  Life 

Chapter  III.— The  Worth  of  Life 

I.  Man  the  Measure  .... 
II.  The  Import  of  Pessimism 
III.  The  Preeminence  of  Beauty 

Chapter  IV. — The  Universai,  and  the  Indi 

VIDUAI, 

I.  Individual  and  Communal  Ideals 
II.  Universality  in  Art 


Chapter  V. — The  Imagination     . 
I.  The  Ofi&ce  of  Imagination     . 
II.  The  Elements  of  Imagination 

1.  Presentational  Elements 

2.  Ideational  Elements 

3.  Emotional  Elements 


7 
18 

28 

28 
43 

50 
50 

58 
68 


82 
82 
90 

106 

106 

115 
116 

134 
141 


Contents 


Chapter  VI.— Esthetic  Expression  .        ,       .153 

I.  The  Creative  Process 153 

1.  Presentation  and  Selection   .        .        .  155 

2.  Composition  and  Synthesis  .        .        .  164 

3.  Will  and  Obsession         ....  169 
II,  Motive  and  Inspiration          ....  175 

Chapter  VII.— Beauty  and  Personawty  .       .  187 

I.  The  Subjectivity  of  the  Beautiful         .        .  187 

II.  The  Quality  of  Personality  ....  196 

Chapter  VIII. — Nature  and  Poetic  Mood       .  212 

I.  Animism  and  Nature's  Will          .        .        .  212 

II.  Poetic  Insight       ......  224 


Index 


235 


Poetry  and  the  Individual 


Poetry  and  the  Individual 


INTRODUCTORY 

BY  a  sort  of  instinctive  convention,  for  it  seems 
never  to  have  been  made  articulate,  there 
has  become  customary  with  most  of  us  tacit  recog- 
nition of  a  certain  broad  division  in  kind  of  our 
affairs  and  actions.  On  the  one  side,  we  have 
what  we  call  life, — all  that  is  practical  and  matter- 
of-fact,  all  that  is  physically  or  morally  of  vital 
concern;  on  the  other,  we  have  a  world  of  vision 
and  romance,  and  we  reckon  its  confines  wide 
enough  to  include  the  deviousness  of  abstruse 
speculation  as  well  as  the  errantry  of  fancy.  The 
inadvertent  interests  which  make  up  this  world 
we  conceive  to  be  well  enough  as  pastime,  but  we 
seldom  count  upon  their  being  effective  in  our 
destinies;  in  other  fields  we  set  man's  real  work. 
And  yet  it  is  not  uncommon  to  meet  a  chal- 
lenging conjointure — '  literature  and  life,'  or  'art 
and  life,'  contending  the  essential  identity  of 
these.  Possibly  the  very  fact  that  such -announce- 
ment seems  necessary  is  acknowledgment  of  their 


2        Poetry  and  the  Individual 

difference  :  it  seems  to  imply  a  belief  in  the  normal 
doubtfulness  of  the  connection  and  in  the  novelty 
of  the  intimac}^  such  as  would  never  occur,  for 
example,  to  a  sure-footed  science  in  regard  to  its 
own  case.  But  at  the  same  time  it  is  hardly  to  be 
questioned  that  literature  and  art  have  played  a 
very  real  part  in  the  serious  business  of  life.  We 
recognise  this  readily  enough  in  the  case  of  the 
Greeks,  and  again  in  the  intensely  religious 
meaning  of  mediaeval  art,  and  we  concede  it  with 
unwitting  pertinence  when  we  enrich  our  common 
intercourse  with  the  phrases  of  the  poets.  Indeed, 
when  we  pause  to  reflect,  there  appears  to  be  no 
compelling  difference  between  the  work  of  the 
scientist  and  the  artist :  both  are  occupied  with 
description  of  experience,  and  the  final  test  of  the 
accomplishment  of  each  is  human  conviction  of 
its  truth;  if  the  poet's  depiction  of  a  great  passion 
comes  home  to  us,  unrelentingly,  inevitably,  it  is 
incorporated  into  the  system  of  our  knowledge  as 
fixedly  as  the  demonstrated  theorem.  And  it  is 
from  the  poet,  perhaps,  that  the  richest  portion 
of  human  knowledge — that  which  concerns  the 
human  soul — has  been  acquired. 

Still  it  is  not  possible  wholly  to  avoid  the 
duality  of  art  and  life;  we  must  explain,  at  least, 
how  it  has  come  to  be  felt.  The  reasons  are  com- 
plex. In  the  first  place,  with  ageing  culture  we 
have  acquired  a  kind  of  aesthetic  scepticism  which 
does  not  permit  us  to  make  real  the  imaginative 
world  as  readily  as  in  former  days;  we  have  set 


Introductory  3 

bounds  to  the  possible,  have  strait-jacketed  cre- 
dulity, and  so  have  lost  that  naive  faith  which  in 
the  age  of  chivalry  discerned  no  barrier  betwixt 
romance  and  life.  Consequent  to  this  has  come 
our  conception  of  art  as  a  species  of  cult,  existing 
for  its  own  sake  rather  than  for  any  possibility 
which  it  can  reveal.  Modern  science  has  helped 
us  on  to  this  conception  (forgetting  how  itself  was 
born  of  the  ancient  faith),  and  even  art,  under  the 
pretence  of  Realism,  has  confessed  the  futility  of 
its  natural  ideals  and  conceded  the  breach  parting 
beauty  from  reality.  But  a  still  more  penetrating 
reason  for  the  separation,  grounded  in  the  very 
nature  of  art,  is  to  be  found  in  Aristotle's  curi- 
ously subtle  designation  of  it  as  imitation 
(^/xipirfffi?)  of  life.  Not  here  may  I  discuss  the 
intention  of  the  term,  though  I  may  preface  that 
the  cleavage  which  it  indicates,  while  real,  is  not 
at  all  to  be  taken  in  its  palpable  sense;  it  refers 
back  to  Aristotle's  Platonism  and  in  the  end  is  an 
affirmation  of  the  reality  of  those  ideals  which  the 
modern  view  would  relegate  to  a  realm  of  vision. 
With  all  these  accountings,  however,  something 
of  the  ambiguity  remains,  and  it  is  not  to  be 
cleared  away  until  we  recognise  that  art  itself  is 
of  two  kinds.  There  is  an  art  which  is  mere  pas- 
time and  whim;  there  is  also  an  art  which  is  as 
truly  of  vital  concern  as  any  other  human  interest. 
In  literature  it  is  not  difficult  to  discriminate  the 
two  :  we  all  know,  the  romance  that  idles  away  a 
resting  hour  and  we  all  know  the  poetic  phrase 


4        Poetry  and  the  Individual 

which  releases  the  pent  mood  in  time  of  mental 
stress  or  soothes  in  time  of  suffering;  there  is  a 
literature  of  entertainment  and  a  literature  of  en- 
lightenment, and  between  them  is  the  veritable 
gap  parting  whimsical  from  vital  concerns. 
Doubtless  it  was  not  always  so  :  play  is  the  seri- 
ous business  of  the  child's  life,  and  in  the  young 
life  of  the  race  the  story  was  a  part  of  its  ethical 
education.  We  have  gotten  beyond  that  stage 
now,  but  we  have  not  outworn  the  really  vital 
oflBce  of  literature,  to  reveal  to  the  mind  its  own 
most  intimate  nature  and  the  way  of  its  growth. 
For  that  ofl&ce  the  efficient  instrument  is  poetry. 
There  is  talk  nowadays  of  poetic  decadence,  and 
if  in  some  relative  sense  this  decadence  be  truth, 
I  think  the  reason  is  not  far  to  find.  We  have 
passed  the  playtime  and  our  poetry  has  become 
too  complexly  earnest  to  be  apprehended  in  the 
old  simple  objective  way;  it  has  set  aside  the  tale 
for  the  tale's  sake,  leaving  that  to  prose  romance, 
and  has  concerned  itself  with  the  more  intrinsic 
oflSce;  it  is  become  a  part  of  our  work,  of  our  life, 
and  is  not  to  be  made  or  understood  without  ex- 
penditure of  living  energy. 

If  there  is,  then,  in  some  portion,  a  real  identity 
of  art  and  life,  it  should  be  of  no  small  concern  to 
work  out  its  special  significance.  This  should  be 
found  in  analysis  and  interpretation  of  the  experi- 
ence of  beauty — an  experience  whose  coming  into 
being  is  not  the  least  of  Nature's  riddles,  and 
whose  comprehension  ought  not   to  prove  the 


Introductory 


poorest  of  her  lessonings.  Of  all  the  paths  which 
may  lead  to  this  comprehension,  the  least  for- 
tuitous should  be  that  which  follows  the  evolution 
of  the  mind's  attitude  in  poetic  creation  and  un- 
derstanding. For  poetry  is  not  only  venerable  in 
age  and  catholic  in  appeal,  but  better  than  any 
other  man-wrought  beauty  unites  the  impulsive 
charm  of  wild  nature  with  the  sensitive  exclu- 
siveness  of  artistic  disposition.  When  the  history 
of  poetic  genesis  and  the  secret  of  poetic  power  are 
finally  determined,  they  must  assuredly  give  clue 
to  the  better  understanding  of  life  in  our  better 
knowledge  of  that  which  makes  life  fair. 

To  the  furtherance  of  such  end  the  ensuing 
discussion  is  addressed,  and  it  is  perhaps  not 
premature  here  to  state  that  in  the  development 
of  the  sense  of  beauty,  as  elsewhere  in  the  world's 
growth,  is  to  be  found  an  intensifying  evolution 
of  individualities.  Nay,  it  may  even  appear  that 
Nature  has  transferred  her  individualising  tend- 
ency from  the  physical  to  the  psychical,  or  rather 
that  she  has  continued  the  tendency  in  the  physi- 
cal realm  begun,  in  the  subtler  and  more  plastic 
medium  of  man's  mind.  In  the  old  days  she 
seems  to  have  multiplied  material  forms  with 
fecund  exuberance,  but  since  man  has  established 
his  supremacy  these  have  gradually  died  away, 
giving  place  to  his  multifarious  creations  and 
yielding  their  grossness  to  the  finer  texture  of 
his  idealisations. 

With  perception  of  this  movement,  and  indeed 


6        Poetry  and  the  Individual 

in  that  very  aspiration  which  is  its  subjective  sign, 
there  comes  insistent  asking  for  its  fuller  meaning. 
The  answer  must  be  deferred  to  those  later  chap- 
ters where,  through  completer  analysis  of  our 
conceptions  of  value,  of  the  imagination  and  its 
motives,  is  sought  the  nearer  meaning  of  in- 
dividuality and  of  the  search  for  it  which  poetic 
evolution  seems  to  reveal.  And  there,  too,  is 
sought  at  least  a  hint  of  what  may  be  its  ultimate 
significance  in  the  order  of  Nature,  and  so  of 
what  may  be  the  real  meaning  of  poetry  and  of  all 
serious  art,  in  human  life. 


CHAPTER  I 

IMPULSE  AND  SONG 
I— POETIC  MOOD 

POETRY  is  complex  not  only  in  the  variety 
and  involved  form  of  its  structure,  but  also 
in  the  psychical  agencies  of  its  appeal  and  in  the 
nature  of  the  motive  and  need  to  which  it  minis- 
ters. We  call  this  motive  and  need  the  poetic 
sense;  but  the  sense  itself  wholly  escapes  defini- 
tion, defies  all  harness  of  phrase.  We  recognise 
its  presence  or  absence  in  modes  of  perception 
rather  by  an  instinct  of  taste  than  through  any 
descriptive  criterion  which  we  can  apply.  We 
recognise,  too,^that  poetry  is  not  the  sole  appeal 
to  the  poetic  sense,  that  there  are  aspects  of 
thoughts  and  things  which  are  poetic  quite  apart 
from  their  form  or  expression.  But  in  poetry  we 
find  the  most  direct,  universal,  and  characteristic 
embodiment  of  the  peculiar  quality,  and  so  we 
have  come  to  term  the  faculty  by  which  it  is 
appreciated  the  poetic  faculty. 

Were  I  to  be  asked  for  a  term  which  might 
most  accurately  designate  the  psychical  matrix  of 
7 


8        Poetry  and  the  Individual 

poetry,  I  should  suggest  mood;  for  by  '  mood ' 
we  mean  an  attitude  of  mind  which  is  neither 
purely  of  the  intellect  nor  purely  of  the  emotions, 
but  derives  something  from  each  of  these  and 
adds  thereto  a  subtle  tone  and  quality  growing 
out  of  the  predispositions  of  the  soul.  Mood  is  a 
kind  of  insight.  It  is  not  insight  into  colourless, 
intellectual  truth,  nor  is  it  a  state  of  personal  bias 
such  as  is  consequent  upon  emotion.  Rather  it  is 
an  unfolding  of  what  is  deep-lying  in  character,  a 
revelation  of  spiritual  diatheses  and  of  the  nature 
of  that  which  is  most  native  and  lasting  in  us. 
Hence,  expression  of  mood,  if  the  expression  be 
true,  seems  to  represent  an  insight  into  reality 
more  fundamental  and  inevitable  than  any  other. 
It  is  insight  into  truth  through  spiritual  perspect- 
ive.    It  is  poetic  insight. 

But  it  must  not  be  conceived  that  the  character 
which  finds  its  revelation  in  the  mood  of  poetry 
is  the  character  which  makes  up  superficial  per- 
sonality. Expression  of  the  narrower  self  is  an 
inadequacy  rather  than  a  proper  achievement  of 
poetry.  It  must  necessarily  be  concerned  with 
the  abnormal  and  eccentric.  True  poetic  insight 
strives  to  see  beyond  all  the  limitations  of  time 
and  circumstance  which  create  the  mere  person, 
and  aims  to  compass  in  their  stead  whatever  is 
fundamental  in  character,  thereby,  the  reality  en- 
during through  individual  histories  and  dictating 
their  destinies.  When  we  feel  that  this  aim 
is   realised,    the   appropriate   expression    indeed 


Impulse  and  Song  9 

attained,  we  say  that  the  poetry  embodies  uni- 
versal truth — a  truth  not  to  be  distinguished 
from  that  which,  in  contrast  to  blank  knowledge 
of  fact,  we  are  wont  to  call  the  higher,  the  poetic 
truthj 

If  we  would  catch  just  the  factor  that  diflfer- 
entiates  mood  from  emotion  and  the  truth  of 
poetry  from  intellectual  truth,  we  should  seek  it 
in  the  genesis  and  origin  of  poetic  expression. 
At  the  basis  of  all  sensuous  delight  there  is  a 
spontaneous,  bird-like  exuberance  of  soul  which 
seems  to  find  its  not  least  apt  incarnation  in  the 
elemental  impulse  for  song.  In  primitive  life  the 
pulsation  of  vocal  melody  seems  a  no  less  fitting 
and  natural  expression  for  the  tempus  of  high 
vitality  than  the  bodily  rhythm  of  the  dance. 
And  so  we  expect  to  find,  as  we  do  find,  in 
the  poetry  of  those  whom  we  are  accustomed 
to  call  children  of  Nature  a  predominance  of  the 
musical,  the  song  element.  They  sing  as  the 
birds  sing,  repeating  over  and  over  the  phrases 
and  intonations  that  please  them,  and  their 
song  has  much  the  same  spontaneity  as  has  bird 
song.    ,^ 

The  primitive  lyric  is,  then,  first  of  all  an  im- 
pulsive outburst  of  emotion,  a  cry  from  the  primi- 
tive heart.  Yet  were  this  all  that  could  be  said 
of  it,  it  could  not  properly  be  poetry,  for  it  would 
represent  no  more  than  does  the  exuberant  glee 
of  the  birds.  But  beside  its  music  of  rhythm, 
repetition,   and  intonation,    the   song  of  savage 


10      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

man  has  distinctive  meanings,  ethical  and  re- 
ligious. For  him  the  natural  world  is  peopled 
by  placable,  if  for  the  most  part  baneful,  spirits, 
and  his  whole  life  is  ordered  by  elaborate 
ritualistic  ceremonials  in  which  the  spell,  the 
song,  the  incantation,  is  for  each  turn  and 
venture  the  one  fixed  and  appropriate  safeguard. 
Stereotyped  by  the  usage  of  generations,  the 
meaning  of  the  original  analogy  may  be  lost, 
but  the  idea  is  preserved  in  the  function  of 
the  expression  and  the  occasion  upon  which  it 
is  voiced. 

Nevertheless,  at  the  first,  it  is  the  simple  lyrical 
outburst,  the  song  spirit,  that  predominates; 
primordial  poetry  exists  far  less  for  its  moral  force 
than  for  its  mood  and  music.  If  we  contrast  with 
it  the  ballad  and  epic  of  the  stage  in  advance,  we 
find  the  case  reversed.  Though  the  music  is  still 
important,  for  there  is  rhyme  and  rhythm  and  the 
harp  accompaniment  of  minstrelsy,  the  composi- 
tion really  exists  for  the  tale  that  is  told.  And 
the  tale  exists  for  its  point,  which  is  its  inspira- 
tion and  is  in  motive  an  ethical  inspiration.  The 
epic  draws  an  ethnic  hero,  the  ideal  individual  of 
a  race  in  whom  is  embodied  whatever  it  is  con- 
scious of  as  its  best.  The  effect  of  such  a  poem  is 
emulous  aspiration  to  attain  the  ideal.  The 
Chanson  de  Roland  is  chanted  by  Taillefer  riding 
to  his  death  in  the  van  of  the  Conqueror's  Nor- 
man knights.  The  Poema  del  Cid  inspires  Spain 
to  hurl  back  into  Africa  her  Moorish  enslavers. 


Impulse  and  Song  n 

Homer  furnishes  a  mine  of  analogy  from  which 
Hellenic  culture  may  quarry  inexhaustible  ma- 
terial for  its  marble- wrought  vision. 

On  a  lesser  scale  the  ballad  performs  a  like 
function;  it  celebrates  an  event  conveying  a  lesson 
which  the  early  minstrel  never  feared  to  render 
unmistakable.  Its  moral  value  outweighed  the 
aesthetic  worth  that  gave  it  vogue, — mainly  be- 
cause the  two  were  so  nearly  one.  It  expressed 
ideals  for  the  sake  of  which  its  creators  were  ethi- 
cal in  action,  an  ethos  from  the  possession  of 
which  they  came  to  believe  in  themselves.  That 
this  ethos  was  largely  communal  resulted  from 
the  limitations  of  a  society  in  which  the  indi- 
vidual existed  for  the  community  and  subordi- 
nated his  desires  to  its  will.  And  it  is  j  ust  because 
we  have  outgrown  the  stage,  the  milieu,  which 
they  were  adapted  to  celebrate  that  the  epic  and 
ballad  have  ceased  to  be  natural  vehicles  for  poetic 
expression.  Only  in  man's  subordination  to  world 
fate  is  there  a  relation  sufl&ciently  analogous  to 
warrant  epical  celebration;  and  so  it  is  that  in  its 
maturer  ages  the  world  has  produced  but  two 
great  epic  poems,  the  cosmical  epics  of  Dante  and 
Milton. 

From  the  plane  of  ethical  idealisation  poetry 
passes  by  diverging  paths  into  dramatic  and  lyri- 
cal developments.  The  dramatic  development 
emphasises  the  idea,  and  endeavours  to  break  free 
from  the  thraldom  of  music.  It  portrays  char- 
acter, life,  destiny,  by  means  of  conceptions  to  a 


12      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

large  extent  capable  of  expression  in  the  language 
of  pure  thought,  and  consequently  it  has  the 
formal  clarity  of  logical  construction.  Diverse  is 
the  lyric  turn.  The  lyric  never  abandons  its 
primal  music,  but  instead  ever  creates  with  more 
sensitive  intimacy  new  melodies  of  language.  If 
in  its  higher  evolution  it  outgrows  musical  accom- 
paniment and  intonation,  it  does  so  only  in  order 
to  substitute  more  adequate  ideational  harmonies. 
Nowadays  we  cite  Browning  for  the  jagged 
phraseology  of  struggle  and  strife,  Whitman  for 
expansive  freedom  and  full  breath,  Poe  for  the 
dirge,  Swinburne  for  the  tantalising  melodies  of 
sensuous  desire.  We  recognise  that  poetry  has 
a  music  all  its  own  and  quite  inimitable,  which 
in  the  lyric  is  a  main  source  of  warmth  and 
passion. 

But  while  the  lyric  clings  to  its  native  music 
and  evolves  new  harmonies  to  satisfy  new  de- 
mand, it  does  not  let  slip  that  for  which,  after  all, 
it  really  exists — the  idea.  As  I  have  said,  the 
poetic  idea  is  not  merely  intellectual;  it  is  never 
apprehended  through  ratiocinative  process.  It 
deals  not  with  the  utile,  logical  truth  of  science, 
but  with  a  truth  coloured  by  personality  and 
mood.  Yet  here  is  the  paradox  :  the  personality 
which  is  celebrated,  and  in  its  celebration  creates 
the  habiliment  of  the  idea,  is  itself  impersonal.  It 
represents  no  real  self  or  character,  but  always 
an  apotheosised,  ideal  self;  and  all  its  value 
arises  from  the  felt  worth  of  this  ideal,  toward 


Impulse  and  Song  13 

which  the  creating  mood  must  ever  unattainingly 
aspire. 

The  distinction  is  metaphysical  and  perhaps 
seemingly  far  from  the  theme,  yet  it  is  ot  utmost 
importance  if  we  are  to  understand  what  poetry 
means.  An  analogy  is  to  be  found  in  the  nature 
of  logical  truth:  all  our  cosmology,  all  our  science, 
all  our  practical  knowledge,  too,  is  only  our  ideal 
representation  of  what  we  conceive  the  world  of 
reality  to  be;  it  is  the  model  to  which  we  imagine 
that  world  may  conform  or  to  which  we  feel  that 
it  ought  to  conform,  but  from  which  we  are  well 
aware  it  is  bound  to  be  more  or  less  divergent.  In 
a  similar  way  poetic  truth  is  an  ideal  model  of  the 
real  character  which  furnishes  its  basis  and  gives 
insight  into  it.  But  the  difference  between  scien- 
tific and  poetic  truth  is  not  less  striking.  Science 
exists  only  for  its  utility,  as  a  means  to  an  end. 
Poetry  is  an  end  in  itself,  though  at  the  same  time 
symbol  of  the  ideal  estate.  It  is  an  end  in  itself 
as  imaginative  realisation  of  beauty,  and  so  as  im- 
aginative satisfaction  and  rest;  but  it  represents 
that  transfiguration  of  human  thought  and  emo- 
tion, by  capacity  for  which  man  has  been  enabled 
to  wrench  free  from  the  brute  and  in  human  im- 
age to  create  divinities.  Just  as  the  Phidian  Zeus 
represented  to  all  Hellenes  the  ideal  Hellene,  so 
the  epiphany  of  a  bit  of  soul-life  in  a  breath  of 
poesy  represents  a  mood  of  the  transfigured  per- 
sonality which  is  the  poet's  vision.  It  is  not  his 
mortal  self,  because  that  is  bound  by  time  and 


14      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

chained  to  circumstance,  but  it  is  his  dream,  and 
because  of  the  glory  of  it  he  believes  more  honestly 
in  his  own  worth  and  in  that  of  his  fellows. 

What  I  aspired  to  be 

And  was  not,  comforts  me, — 

says  Rabbi  Ben  Ezra,  and  in  every  appreciation 
of  a  noble  poem,  or  indeed  of  any  worthy  art,  the 
soul  is  ennobled,  as  by  every  true  poetic  inspira- 
tion some  degree  of  spiritual  knighthood  is  con- 
ferred. To  be  sure,  manifestations  of  poetic  mood 
need  not  be  invariably  universal  nor  invariably 
exalted  in  character  in  order  to  be  genuine.  The 
impulse  of  a  Byronic  love-song  is  hardly  what  we 
conceive  to  be  a  fine  type  of  human  passion;  yet 
the  song  is  none  the  less  poetry.  The  reason 
is  that  the  passion  celebrated  has  ceased  to  be 
merely  Byronic.  Embalmed  in  art  it  is  perceived 
as  a  great  human  heart-burning,  and  because  of 
its  virile  humanity  it  is  not  alien  to  us. 

Such  is  the  nature  of  the  poetic  idea,  the  second 
characteristic  of  the  lyric  and  not  less  essential 
than  its  music.  A  third  characteristic  is  metaphor. 
By  this  I  mean  no  mere  figure  of  speech,  though 
the  figure  of  speech  furnishes  likeliest  conveyance 
and  the  warrant  for  my  usage.  Rather  I  mean 
that  expansive  quality  of  the  mood,  to  be  vari- 
ously designated  a  wistfulness  or  a  yearning  or 
yet  a  rapturous  ecstasy,  but  which  is  always,  like 
the  amorous  orientation  of  the  sun-loving  flower, 


Impulse  and  Song  15 

an  attitude  of  desire  unappeasable,  though  ever 
too  hopeless  to  be  selfish.  The  quality  is  not  to 
be  identified  with  emotion;  it  is  far  too  impersonal 
and  free.  It  may  awaken  emotion,  as  a  wind 
awakens  waters  to  unrest,  but  it  never  lingers  in 
the  roil;  it  is  concerned  with  destinies  beyond. 
Still  less  is  it  insight  into  truth,  for  it  can  never 
be  embodied  in  representation  as  all  truth  must 
be.  Moreover,  it  is  not  vision,  although  it  always 
exists  in  connection  with  vision.  Perhaps  it  may 
best  be  termed  the  atmosphere  of  vision,  the  me- 
dium of  that  refracted  light  which  glorifies  as 
poetry  what  else  would  be  barren  fact. 

Because  of  its  elusiveness  metaphorical  speech 
is  the  natural  language  of  metaphoric  mood.  Its 
character  cannot  be  presented  and  so  must  be  sug- 
gested, lyanguage  furnishes  readiest  instrument 
because  freest  from  the  tyranny  of  sensation.  The 
mood  may  be  present  in  all  art,  in  all  appreciation 
of  beauty,  but  wherever  the  imagination  is  per- 
ceptually stimulated  there  is  bound  to  be  a  diver- 
sion to  the  sensuous  context;  real  colour  and 
form,  real  sound, — these  to  a  certain  extent  thrall 
the  imagination  they  delight,  hiding  the  finer 
meanings  of  the  art.  Even  in  literature  the  ap- 
peal is  precarious,  for  appreciation  of  literary  art 
requires  a  constructive  rather  than  a  receptive  im- 
agination, hence,  a  close,  and  by  no  means  cer- 
tain, sympathy  between  artist  and  art-lover. 
With  the  lyric  such  sympathy  is  importunately 
demanded.     I^yrical  balance  is  delicate  because  of 


1 6       Poetry  and  the  Individual 

the  hermit  nature  of  the  spirit  it  would  express. 
There  must  be  no  painting  of  pictures  lest  the 
mood  be  lost  in  ideal  perceptions.  There  must  be 
no  insistently  articulate  structure  lest  the  mind  be 
diverted  to  logical  sequences.  The  mixed  figure 
is  a  permissible,  even  a  requisite  instrument,  for 
the  lyric  aims  to  win  an  emotional  rather  than  an 
intellectual  consistency,  and  the  poet  may  be 
forced  for  the  sake  of  the  whole  impression  to  clip 
the  wings  of  a  too  radiant  fancy.  Shelley  affords 
multitudinous  example, — poetic  phantasmagoria, 
fleeting  half-imageries  that  haunt  the  mental  Hin- 
terland,  giving  it  atmosphere  and  suggestion  with- 
out absorbing  the  main  force  of  the  appeal. 

I  imagine  I  can  hardly  make  clear  this  final, 
vague  but  essential  quality  of  the  lyric  except 
by  illustration.  First  the  primitive  song  of  an 
Arapahoe  "  ghost  -  dancer, "  as  given  in  Alice 
Fletcher's  compilation  of  Indian  Story  and  Song. 
Of  the  ghost-dance,  the  author  says  : 


The  ceremony  is  but  an  appeal  to  the  unseen  world  to 
come  near  and  comfort  those  who  have  been  overtaken 
in  the  land  of  their  fathers  by  conditions  both  strange  and 
incomprehensible.  .  .  .  The  ghost-dance  is  the  cry 
of  a  forsaken  people,  forsaken  by  the  gods  in  which  they 
once  trusted, — a  people  bewildered  by  the  complexity  of 
the  new  path  they  must  follow,  misunderstood  by  and 
misunderstanding  the  race  with  whom  they  are  forced  to 
live.  In  this  brief  ceremony  of  the  ghost-dance  the  In- 
dians seek  to  close  their  eyes  to  an  unw3lcome  reality  and 
to  live  in  the  fanciful  vision  of  an  irrecoverable  past. 


Impulse  and  Song  17 

And  it  is  the  heart-hunger  for  that  past  which  is 
this  prayer-song's  metaphor  and  mood, — 

Father  have  pity  upon  me ! 
I  am  weeping  from  hunger : 
There  is  nothing  here  to  satisfy  me ! 

CiviHsation  tends  ever  to  reave  men  of  the  naive 
joy  of  racial  childhood,  a  joy  in  the  mere  wonder 
of  things.  The  savage,  brought  into  contact  with 
culture,  is  bewildered  and  saddened;  but  poets  of 
the  cultured  race  as  well  have  lost  the  pure  de- 
light of  the  days  before  conscious  self-seclusion 
had  been  painfully  evolved.  With  us  are  no 
more  Sapphic  odes,  no  more  unblushing  nudities 
of  love.  The  mood  of  the  modern  is  rather  of 
wistfulness  than  of  wild,  pristine  joy.  Yet  the 
song  of  to-day  need  be  no  less  hauntingly  sweet 
than  in  days  of  yore,  and  by  reason  of  a  certain 
reticence  and  sacrifice  in  its  mood  it  may  be  nobler 
than  song  then  was.     So  in  Keats, — 

Ah,  happy,  happy  boughs  !  that  cannot  shed 
Your  leaves,  nor  ever  bid  the  Spring  adieu: 

And  happy  melodist,  unwearied, 
Forever  piping  songs  forever  new  .  .  . 

Here  is  no  envious  sadness,  though  sadness  there 
is.  And  here  is  a  quality  unknown  in  primitive 
song,  consequence  of  new  psychic  character,  of 
the  keener  insights  of  cultural  elevation.  It  is  a 
quality  not  to  be  attained  except  by  abnegation  of 
self-desire  and  aspiration  toward  spiritual  worth. 


1 8       Poetry  and  the  Individual 

'^It  exists,  let  us  say,  as  the  poet's  Daphne  whom 
it  is  his  one  rapture  to  pursue,  his  one  unceasing 
pain  never  to  clasp  as  his  own.  Perhaps  in  the 
mood  is  a  semi-contradiction,  an  ideal  which  is 
and  is  not  the  poet's  own,  an  aspiration  which  is 
and  is  not  hopeless, — but  if  so,  it  seems  to  be  just 

.  the  contradiction  that  makes  poetry  possible. 

II — POETIC   ATTITUDE   AND   ESSENCE 

The  typical  mood  underlying  all  poetry  I  take 
to  be  the  lyrical — in  the  most  catholic  meaning 
of  lyrical.  Whatever  its  form  or  circumstance, 
poetry  as  poetry  is  possessed  of  a  certain  elemental 
character  determining  the  family  likeness  and  dis- 
tinguishing it  from  other  renderings  of  mood. 
That  elemental  character  finds  its  first  embodi- 
ment in  simple  impulsive  song,  wherein,  too,  is 
contained  the  patterning  of  all  maturer  develop- 
ments. Nevertheless,  these  developments  bring 
forth  variety  both  in  forms  of  poetic  expression 
and  in  the  mental  attitudes  of  poets,  and  though 
it  were  a  pleasurable  courtesy  to  leave  the  ques- 
tion of  the  one  nature  of  all  poetry  wholly  to  the 
reader's  intelligence,  that  question  suffers  too  ob- 
stinate obscuration  to  permit  me  to  pass  it  without 
being  explicit. 

There  is  commonly  conceived  to  be  an  easy  line 
of  distinction,  serving  as  a  ready  base  for  defini- 
tion, between  objective  and  subjective  art.  Some 
poets,  we  are  told,  are  gifted  with  free  and  unim- 
peded vision,  while  the  insight  of  others  is  clouded 


Impulse  and  Song  19 

by  a  more  or  less  obtrusive  self-consciousness,  giv- 
ing the  tone  of  particularity  to  their  art  and  pre- 
venting finality  in  their  utterance.  Poets  of  the 
first  class,  objective,  clairvoyant,  are  creators  of 
great  poetry;  poets  of  the  second  class,  at  the 
highest,  are  only  great  poets, — their  poetry  is 
embodiment  of  their  personality  and  must  be  un- 
derstood by  understanding  the  poet's  self.  We 
must  know  Dante  in  order  to  comprehend  his 
poetic  aspiration;  we  need  not  know  Sophocles  or 
Shakespeare  in  order  to  comprehend  CBdipus  or 
Othello. 

At  the  best  such  discrimination  is  partial. 
True  though  it  be  that  we  need  to  know  of 
Dante's  personal  hopes  and  misfortunes  and  of  his 
century  and  country  in  order  to  understand  his 
poetical  cosmology,  it  is  likewise  certain  that  we 
understand  Shakespeare  better  knowing  that  he 
was  an  Elizabethan  Englishman  and  the  Greek 
better  with  our  better  knowledge  of  ancient 
Athens.  Nevertheless,  the  main  distinction  re- 
mains; we  are  confronted,  at  least,  with  more 
than  one  type  of  poetic  interest,  and  it  behooves 
to  inquire  more  narrowly. 

^stheticians  treat  all  art  —  and  justly  —  as  a 
kind  of  objectification,  so  that  for  pure  aesthetics 
the  terms  'objective'  and  'subjective'  mean  some- 
thing quite  other  than  is  ordinarily  intended  in 
criticism;  and  in  psychology  there  is  no  more  vex- 
atiously*  debated  problem  than  this  of  determin- 
ing the  proper  bounds  of  subjectivity.     It  must, 


20      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

then,  be  less  by  searchings  out  than  by  studied 
neglects  of  the  distinctions  pursued  in  these  sci- 
ences that  we  may  hope  to  attain  clear  critical 
usage.  In  advance  it  is  well  to  postulate — what 
must  be  repeated  in  conclusion — that  the  differ- 
ence between  subjective  and  objective  is  never 
easy  and  certain;  the  boundary  is  a  changing, 
living  boundary,  so  that  what  for  the  writer  of 
one  period  is  most  intensel}^  personal,  in  a  later 
age  is  common  property  of  mankind.  The  pro- 
cess of  objectification  is  an  historical,  evolutional 
process;  the  tendency  is  to  growth  outward  from 
within,  where  the  energising  force  always  arises 
(the  important  fact).  But  while  this  is  true  of 
poetic  substance,  it  is  not  true  of  the  poet's  atti- 
tude; the  attitude  is  determined  by  the  mind's 
complexion,  the  man's  interest  (hence,  his  en- 
vironment); and  it  is  the  attitude  alone,  therefore, 
which  may  properl}'^  be  termed  objective  or  sub- 
jective. To  it  are  due  the  colour  and  tone  of  the 
art. 

There  are  three  characteristic  attitudes  to  be 
distinguished.  First,  the  objective  or  dramatic. 
The  poet  ostensibly  places  himself  on  a  level  with 
all  the  world  as  a  mere  observer  and  recorder  of 
what  is  happening.  He  details  only  what  might 
come  under  observation  through  the  senses,  deny- 
ing himself  any  knowledge  of  his  characters  or 
scenes  from  behind  the  sources  of  common  ex- 
perience. He  writes  as  he  sees,  with  seeming  pas- 
sivity of  affection  and  impartiality   of  interest. 


Impulse  and  Song  21 

Really  his  description  of  events  is  interpretation 
of  them,  but  the  possessive  is  made  as  unobtrusive 
as  possible. 

In  contrast,  the  subjective  attitude  is  character- 
ised by  poetic  omniscience.  The  poet  asserts 
insight  into  the  character  and  motives  of  his 
creatures,  into  the  causes  and  essential  nature  of 
his  phenomena.  He  analyses  and  interprets  by 
grace  of  this  insight.  He  assumes  his  own  om- 
niscience with  respect  to  his  people  and  events, 
and  stands  between  them  and  his  audience.  He 
writes  as  he  knows  a  pi'iori ;  or,  in  the  realm  of 
feeling  and  mood,  as  feeling  and  mood  may 
prompt,  on  unpremeditated  impulse.  The  ex- 
pression springs  from  the  author's  inner  know- 
ledge or  feeling,  not  from  sense-observations;  its 
source  is  subjective  sentience. 

The  third  attitude  is  also  subjective,  but  the 
subjectivity  is  more  or  less  sophisticated, —  there 
has  entered  in  what  the  philosophers  call  reflective 
self-consciousness.  The  poet  interprets  his  own 
soul  for  his  own  soul's  sake,  with  no  particular 
reference  to  his  audience.  There  is  here  no  eflfort 
to  conceal  mind-colouring;  rather,  indeed,  it  is 
accentuated  and  all  the  finer  shades  of  perception 
and  the  more  delicate  significances  are  wrought 
out  with  exactitude.  The  art  is  based  upon  in- 
sight wholly  personalised;  the  author  writes  as 
he  sees  through.  Such  attitude,  for  want  of  a 
better  term,  may  be  called  the  i7itrospective 
attitude. 


22       Poetry  and  the  Individual 

I  distinguish  these  attitudes  for  the  sake  of 
identifying  them,  or  rather  for  the  sake  of  dis- 
tinguishing in  and  from  each  of  them  that  ele- 
mental inspiration  of  poetic  impulse  and  mood 
which  alone  enables  creation  of  poetry,  and  bonds 
together  the  adumbrate  prayer  of  the  Arapahoe 
ghost-dancer  and  the  cosmical  flow  of  Miltonic 
numbers.  To  begin  with,  it  must  be  quite  clear 
that  the  objective  attitude  is  no  sure  premise  of 
artistic  merit.  If  the  test  is  mere  clarity  of  sensa- 
tion, we  should  be  compelled  to  rank  Stevenson 
with  Chaucer,  and  to  place  a  dozen  contemporary 
romancers  above  Hawthorne.  But  such  criterion 
is  palpably  superficial;  the  sight,  the  vision  that 
determines  the  quality  of  art  is  of  a  subtler  scope, 
embracing  character  and  soul  as  well  as  bodily 
form.  External  reality  affords  but  the  instru- 
ment of  expression;  the  test  of  the  inspiration  is 
the  energy  and  life  that  is  bodied  forth.  Genius 
vitalises  ideals;  it  creates  personalities;  if  these 
are  complete  —  whole  men  and  whole  women, — 
then  we  have  dramatic  presentation  at  its  best, 
inspiration  in  its  uttermost  abnegation;  we  forget 
Shakespeare  and  live  Macbeth.  That  is  the 
aspect  in  which  the  great  dramatist  is  objective, 
but  on  another  scale  he  may  be  ranked  subjective, 
— Shakespeare  with  respect  to  Chaucer,  Sophocles 
with  respect  to  Homer.  At  all  events,  what  else 
the  contrast  between  the  naive  maidenliness  of 
Nausicaa  and  the  womanly  nobility  of  Antigone, 
between  the  robustious  female  vigour  of  the  Wife 


Impulse  and  Song  23 

of  Bath  and  the  fine  instinct  of  Imogen  ?  Antigone 
and  Imogen  are  created  in  eras  of  awakened  con- 
sciousness, of  lively  reflection,  and  their  person- 
alities mirror  the  reflective  mood.  But  theirs^  do 
you  say,  — not  Sophocles'  nor  Shakespeare' s  ?  In- 
deed they  are  but  incarnations  of  the  souls  of 
Sophocles  and  Shakespeare;  in  each  case  there 
has  been  a  fission  of  the  poet's  personality  and  the 
gemmate  self  has  leaped  into  whole  being, —  for 
all  that  the  poet's.  There  is  no  creation  of  the 
imagination  that  does  not  in  part  embody  its 
maker's  character;  and  where  the  creative  genius 
belongs  to  the  relatively  reflective,  subjective  age, 
the  creatures  brought  forth  naturally  take  on  the 
cast  of  reflection  and  the  hue  of  the  more  thought- 
ful mind. 

But  I  have  yet  to  show  the  proper  quality 
of  subjectivity, —  the  quality  that  distinguishes 
Dante  from  the  dramatists.  As  in  all  reflective 
developments,  it  is  a  quality  of  abstract  concep- 
tion. Instead  of  creating  whole  men  and  women, 
random-chosen  from  the  multitude,  the  poet 
creates  types,  accentuated  personalities  that  derive 
their  significance  from  their  nearness  to  the  poet's 
interest.  Not  that  they  need  fail  of  vitality  and 
individuality,  even  fleshly  force;  indeed,  as 
Plato's  Ideas,  they  may  be  the  most  concretely  real 
of  all  things;  but  they  have  a  meaning  for  the 
poet,  in  his  nature,  and  a  meaning  for  us,  in  our 
nature,  which  is  their  essential  being  and  the 
essential  embodiment  of  that  in  us  which  they 


24      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

portraj'.  So  Milton's  Satan  is  well-nigh  final 
realisation  of  the  arch-impotence  of  the  rebellious 
energy  of  evil  in  the  human  heart.  A  great  re- 
flective poet  thus  speaks  his  whole  soul  in  em- 
bodied moods;  a  lesser  utters  more  partial 
message,  being  endowed  with  a  less  ubiquitous 
poetic  instinct.  The  pessimists  are  for  the  most 
part,  as  Poe,  men  of  restricted  creation,  the 
quantity  of  their  work  small;  their  pessimism 
need  not  mean  that  their  nature  is  narrow  or  that 
there  is  no  sunlight  in  the  spirit's  house,  but  only 
that  the  sunlight  does  not  inspire  poetry, — all 
the  young  man's  songs  are  love-songs,  but  he  is 
seldom  unremittingly  a  lover. 

But  though  the  personality  of  the  reflective  poet 
is  ever  present  in  his  creation,  this  creation  is  not 
necessarily  narrower  than  that  of  the  dramatist 
speaking  with  many  distinct  voices;  the  breadth 
and  strength  of  the  poet's  sympathy,  not  the  atti- 
tude which  he  assumes  toward  his  world  nor  the 
character  of  his  interest  in  it,  determine  its  scope. 
An  analogy  from  plastic  art  may  enlighten.  The 
sculptor  conceives  in  three  dimensions,  and  creates 
by  an  instinct  of  touch,  by  a  feeling  for  volume, 
as  well  as  by  sight.  Compared  with  the  painter's 
his  work  is  more  an  externalisation,  more  a  free- 
ing of  the  product  from  the  self;  the  cleavage  is 
acute,  as  with  the  dramatist.  But  the  poet  with 
reflective  instincts  touches  his  work  with  a  colour 
and  warmth  akin  to  that  of  the  painter's  art, 
vivifying  with  his  own  life's  most  intimate  hues. 


Impulse  and  Song  25 

Yet  whatever  the  attitude  and  artistic  method,  the 
cast  of  character,  like  the  artist's  signature,  is 
stamped  upon  the  art;  that  is  the  masterful 
Angelo,  we  say;  this,  the  grace  of  Raphael;  there 
Herrick  dallies  phrase,  Lyly  lisps  this  conceit, 
and  here  the  stately  Sidney  sonnets  his  devoir. 
In  such  sense  all  art  is  subjective. 

There  remains  the  introspective  attitude.  Con- 
sequence, as  I  have  said,  of  sophistication,  it  be- 
longs to  an  era  in  which  poets  become  critics  in 
self-defence.  But  it  implies,  besides  criticism, 
widening  knowledge  and  expanding  sympathy, 
and  it  finds  expression  in  a  bent  for  proselyting 
no  less  than  in  heightened  individuality.  (  In  large 
part  the  introspection  is  impressionistic,  especially 
in  our  psychologising  age,  and  is  in  near  corre- 
spondence with  impressionism  in  painting.J  Con- 
trast Corot  or  Turner  or  the  Impressionists  of  the 
propaganda  with  the  religious  painters  of  Italy, 
and  we  get  the  contrast  between  introspective,  in- 
dividualistic subjectivity  and  the  pure,  Platonis- 
ing  subjectivity.  The  Italian  paints  an  ideal,  a 
Mary,  a  Christ,  his  by  the  eye  of  faith,  but  the 
world's  long  before;  the  modern  comes  as  a  pro- 
phet opening  the  gates  of  new  vision,  yet  to  be 
revealed  to  the  many.  Again,  the  difference  be- 
tween the  neo-pre-Raphaelite  and  the  real  pre- 
Raphaelite :  it  is  not  a  difference  between  sincerity 
and  lack  of  it,  but  between  self-consciousness  and 
lack  of  it.  The  introspective  attitude  is  essentially 
neo-Kantian  ;    the  world  is   no  longer  a  fateful 


26      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

external  world;  it  is  brought  into  the  soul's  own 
house  and  is  warmed  and  nourished  at  the  soul's 
own  hearth  stone;  and  this  realisation  of  the  in- 
timacy of  the  world  and  the  self  gives  rise  to  that 
hovering  regard,  that  lambency  of  atmosphere 
and  delicacy  of  touch  which  imbues  with  person- 
ality modern  poetry  and  painting. 

But  the  discrimination  of  attitudes  is,  after  all, 
superficial;  they  are  assumed  to  meet  present  ex- 
igency, to  satisfy  peculiar  need.  They  may  even 
be  intermingled  and  interwrought ;  perhaps  usu- 
ally are  so.  The  inspiration  lies  deeper,  and  it  is 
the  inspiration  that  vitalises.  And  in  all  poetic 
creation  the  vital  unit  is  the  same  :  its  psychic 
form  is  poetic  mood,  its  simplest  and  most  ade- 
quate artistic  embodiment  is  lyrical  utterance.  I 
say  this  in  full  understanding,  for  dramatic  poetry 
(and  all  art  conceived  objectively)  lives  only  in  so 
far  as  it  embodies  the  lyric  pulse  of  the  soul.  The 
greater  genius  of  the  dramatist  lies,  if  anywhere, 
in  versatile  and  inexhaustible  poetic  energy;  he 
must  speak  many  languages  and  know  many 
moods,  and  this  in  close-knit  temporal  relations  ; 
his  imagination  must  be  something  of  the  Mozart 
type,  capable  of  holding  a  whole  symphony  in 
one  timeless  apprehension.  The  dramatist,  in 
conceiving  and  evolving  situation,  presents  the 
one  possible  place  for  the  one  possible  utterance, 
and  it  comes  there  with  the  inevitable  poignancy 
so  common  in  Marlowe  and  Shakespeare;  but  the 
lyric  poet  must  evolve  an  understanding  in  the 


Impulse  and  Song  27 

character  of  the  expression  itself;  for  him  there 
are  no  aids.  Hence  the  subtlety  and  uncertainty 
of  lyric  appeal;  but  from  the  same  cause  arises  the 
self-inclusiveness  of  lyric  poetry,  which  renders  it 
the  most  perfect  of  all  expressions  of  spiritual  life. 
Its  very  ideality  of  abstraction,  its  crystal  purity, 
fits  it  for  reflection  of  what  is  final  in  human 
nature.' 


CHAPTER  II 
EVOLUTION  OP  POETIC  SPIRIT 

I — ITS    SOCIAL    CONTEXT  ;     ITS    INDIVIDUAL 
SIGNIFICANCE 

THE  attitudes  which  I  have  distinguished,  in 
the  order  in  which  I  have  placed  them,  re- 
present, in  a  general  way,  the  course  which  the 
evolution  of  poetic  consciousness  has  followed. 
They  represent,  that  is,  those  manners  of  think- 
ing or  of  perceiving  which  at  difierent  times  and 
under  different  circumstances  have  been  most 
compatible  with  poetic  expression.  Nature 
aflfects  human  consciousness  variously,  according 
to  its  development,  and  man  responds  variously, 
according  to  his  intellectual  stature.  In  the  most 
primitive  stage  his  thinking  is  simple  and  ob- 
jective; later  it  is  complicated  by  his  growing 
conviction  of  the  independence  of  his  own  per- 
sonality; and  finally  it  assumes  an  infinite  sub- 
tlety, whether  of  impressionistic  observation  of 
his  perceptions  or  of  introspective  analysis  of 
ideas  and  emotions. 

But  through  all  this  evolution,  it  must  be  re- 
membered that  what  is  basic  remains  the  same; 
28 


Evolution  of  Poetic  Spirit       29 

and  that  is  the  poetic  mood,  maintaining  the  poet 
of  the  most  world-weary  civilisation  in  propinqui- 
tous  sympathy  with  the  most  inchoate  maker  of 
savage  song.  Human  nature,  here  as  elsewhere, 
with  its  engrossing  samenesses,  bridges  the  years 
of  human  growth  and  reveals  the  old  life  in  the 
new.  I  urge  this  in  order  that  allowance  may  be 
made  for  the  necessary  exaggeration  in  contrast. 
There  is  a  certain  falsity  of  perspective  even  in 
truth, — perhaps  most  inevitable  where  the  truth 
is  most  significant.  Whatever  the  reahties,  in 
order  to  compare  them  we  must  withdraw  them 
frop  their  proper  condition  and  environment,  and 
so,  with  the  best  intent,  to  some  degree  falsify 
them.  By  way  of  preface  to  comparisons,  I  need 
only  remind  the  reader  of  their  relativity.  How- 
ever unimpeachable  the  oracle,  however  dogmatic 
the  utterance,  there  are  always  reservations. 
Especially  must  this  be  true  in  descriptions  of 
developments.  Evolutions  are  doubtless  epochal 
in  their  ascents,  but  the  epochs  are  never  so  clearly 
marked  as,  for  simplicity's  sake,  we  love  to 
conceive  them.  Bach  period  of  growth  shows 
tentative  effort  toward  realisation  of  the  achieve- 
ment of  the  period  that  is  to  follow;  successions 
are  unmistakably  prophesied.  But  at  the  same 
time  each  period  has  a  mean  character  clearly  dis- 
tinguishing it  from  all  that  precede  or  follow;  and 
it  is  in  description  and  comparison  of  the  mean 
characters  of  successive  epochs  that  the  form  of 
the  whole  growth  is  revealed. 


30      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

The  evolution  of  consciousness  leading  up  to 
higher  poetic  expression  is  primarily  a  social  evo- 
lution— that  is,  its  motives  are  social.  Primitive 
song  was  mainly  choral,  and  grew  out  of  and 
accompanied  the  rhythmical  activities  of  dance 
and  labour.'  It  was  centred  in  the  life  and  the 
fact  of  the  moment,  existing  as  the  voice  of  the 
deed  or  of  the  exuberance  of  the  whole  organism. 
The  peasant  of  old  Egypt,  thrusting  the  grain  be- 
neath the  trampling  feet  of  oxen  driven  to  and  fro, 
sang  in  monotonous  repetition  : 

Thresh,  O  thresh ;  thresh,  O  thresh  ; 
Thresh  the  corn,  O  oxen. 

It  was  a  song  precisely  similar  to  the  not  unmelodi- 
ous,  "  Ye  oh,  heave  ho!  "  of  the  modern  section- 
gang,  or  to  the  rude  improvisations  of  the  country 
dance-fiddler,  or  to  innumerable  choric  chants  of 
savage  dancers  the  world  over. 

The  characteristics  of  this  early  consciousness 
are  apparent :  first,  interest  absorbed  by  the  im- 
mediate activity  or  object  of  attention;  second, 
communally  inspired  expression.     But  in  the  in- 

'  For  the  most  satisfactory  exposition  of  the  social  ori- 
gins of  poetry  the  reader  is  referred  to  Professor  Francis 
B.  Gummere's  The  Beginnings  of  Poetry  (1900).  While 
I  cannot  agree  with  what  seems  to  be  the  author's  thesis, 
that  poetry  is  essentially  a  phenomenon  of  'social  psy- 
chology,' still  I  do  not  question  that  in  earliest  times  its 
occasioniugs  and  applicalious  were  mainly  social. 


Evolution  of  Poetic  Spirit      31 

stances  cited — co-operative  labour  and  the  dance — 
we  are  in  the  presence  of  some  advancement  in 
social  evolution.  Song  could  hardly  have  been 
brought  forth  from  chance  congregations  of  palaeo- 
lithic savages  except  the  instinct  and  need  for  it 
already  existed  in  the  individual.  We  must  con- 
ceive a  leader  of  the  primeval  chorus.  All  the 
bright  day  he  follows  the  chase.  He  sees  a 
haughty  roebuck  startled  in  the  glade.  It  leaps 
away  in  terror,  the  bough-filtered  light  of  the  sun 
flecking  the  satiny  haunches.  The  buck!  The 
bounding  buck!  He  hurls  his  flint-pointed  dart; 
and  turning  away  with  his  prize,  he  fashions  a 
little  song  celebrating  the  one  event  that  has  made 
his  day  worth  living:  "  O  the  buck!  The  bound- 
ing buck!  "  And  at  night,  beside  the  feast-fire, 
he  repeats  it,  until  all  take  up  the  chorus.  The 
instinct  is  not  exclusively  human.  We  see  the 
same  thing — surely  the  same  thing — in  the  im- 
pulsive lyric  of  the  meadow-lark:  over  and  over 
again,  and  always  a  wondering  joy — that  the  sky 
could  be  so  radiantly  blue,  the  earth  so  verdantly 
sweet.  And  in  the  phrases  which  our  three- year- 
olds  and  four-year-olds  repeat  hour-long  at  their 
play,  phrases  always  designating  the  object  at 
hand,  always  rhythmically  intoned — have  we  not 
here,  too,  the  primitive  instinct  ? 

Yet  because  the  impulse  perforce  originated 
with  the  individual,  the  song  was  not  less  a  social 
phenomenon.  In  the  child  age,  the  golden  age, 
man  and  Nature  formed   congenial  friendships. 


32       Poetry  and  the  Individual 

Society  was  not  yet  selective.  The  social  instinct 
existed  and  found  expression,  but  it  was  directed 
with  indiflFerent  ubiquity  to  whatever  animate  or 
inanimate  object  caught  the  eye.  Children  form 
dear  attachments  for  sticks  and  stones,  a  queer 
knot  is  a  treasure;  their  fellowship  is  all-em- 
bracing, but  it  is  true  fellowship,  for  they  endow 
all  things  with  social  responsiveness.  So  with  our 
palaeolithic  poet :  Nature  is  his  society,  and  his 
celebrant  song  expresses  the  intercourse  of  his 
mood  with  the  var3ang  mood  of  the  mother-world. 
She  is  sunny,  he  is  buoyant;  she  lowers,  he  is 
petulant;  she  storms,  he  is  terrified.  Always  she 
is  the  autocrat. 

Eventually  the  autocracy  of  the  natural  world  is 
resented.  Then  follows  rebellion,  warfare.  Na- 
ture is  no  longer  the  matriarch  whose  whim  is 
law;  she  is  rightful  prey  for  whomsoever  may  be 
strong  to  despoil  her.  In  endeavouring  to  effect 
the  economic  subjugation  of  nature,  clan  and  tribe 
come  to  realise  their  independence  and  self-sufl5- 
ciency.  Ethnic  consciousness  takes  form  and  the 
ethnic  ideal  is  exalted.  Kinship  becomes  para- 
mount, and  in  contrast  to  consanguinity  all  else 
appears  foreign  and  hostile.  Warfare  of  clan  with 
clan,  of  tribe  with  tribe,  is  the  inevitable  conse- 
quence,— for  it  should  be  noted  that  as  yet  the 
sense  of  relationship  does  not  include  all  mankind, 
nor  has  hostile  nature  ceased  to  be  human.  To 
lead  the  tribe  in  its  career  of  war,  demi-gods  are 
invoked  and  heroes  created.      The   age  is  the 


Evolution  of  Poetic  Spirit       33 

heroic  age.  But  the  hero  is  no  apotheosised  in- 
dividual; rather  he  is  the  incarnate  spirit  of  the 
kindred,  the  mihtant  genius  of  the  tribe.  The 
actual  individual  remains  submissive  in  will  and 
wish,  while  the  tyranny  of  clan  and  gens  becomes 
quite  as  absolute  as  was  erst  the  autocracy  of 
nature. 

But  the  clan  at  least  brings  fellowship.  And 
thence  is  evolved  pity  and  compassion;  and 
thence,  chivalry.  Comradeship,  fellow-feeling, 
sacrifice  of  self  for  the  brother's  sake, — such  was 
the  growth.  Nature,  I  have  said,  had  come  to 
be  looked  upon  as  hostile  to  man's  destiny.  In 
the  flower  of  his  youth  she  destroyed  him,  in  age 
she  shackled  him  to  a  crutch.  And  Nature  is  not 
easy  to  overcome;  the  contention  is  sore  fought; 
while  the  lost  and  imprisoned,  are  they  not  many? 
Now  the  knight-errant,  hero  of  the  age  of  chiv- 
alry, was  essentially  a  liberator.  It  was  his  to 
break  the  shackles  of  hapless  wights  chained  in 
the  donjon-keep  of  the  Mother  of  Wiles.  It  was 
his  to  war  with  magic  and  wizardry,  with  the 
powers  of  darkness,  the  dooms  of  the  Fates.  Like 
Galahad  he  must  battle  with  deadly  Sins  for  the 
freedom  of  tormented  virgins,  or  like  Owain  ap 
Urien  break  with  a  kiss  the  loathed  spell  and  win 
a  princess  back  to  humanhood.  Sometimes  the 
knight  succumbs.  Tannhauser,  in  the  ancient 
version,  is  lost  for  ever  in  Venusberg.  And  again, 
there  is  a  cruel  jest  of  the  enchantress, — cheating 
mortals  of  their  due  allowance  of  human  days, 


34      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

not  by  cuttiug  life  short,  but,  as  with  luckless 
Rip,  by  stealing  the  good  years  of  maturity  out 
of  hand,  while  leaving  the  feeble  iucon.sequence 
of  age.    But  these  be  fortunes  of  war  and  errantry. 

We  have  passed  in  review  three  stages.  First 
a  golden  age  under  the  matriarchate  of  Nature, 
before  the  kindreds  had  declared  themselves. 
Song  then  was  ebullition  of  the  moment,  impro- 
visation, concerned  with  the  nearest  trifle.  In 
mode  it  was  always  objective  and  ingenuously 
free.  Next,  the  heroic  age.  Society  is  organised 
under  martial  law  and  the  social  ideal,  which  is 
the  combating  hero,  is  tyrant.  There  is  de- 
veloped, however,  a  consciousness  of  kinship,  and 
so  of  the  social  self.  Hence,  in  song  there  is  a 
subjective  colour  to  expression,  but  it  is  the  sub- 
jectivity of  an  aggregate,  of  the  mob,  the  clan, 
lyastl}^  the  age  of  chivalry.  Fellowship,  and 
thence  compassion,  the  errant  knight  the  ideal. 
Its  poetry  is  in  the  romantic  mode,  subjective  in 
that  it  is  based  upon  a  recognition  of  distinctions 
of  will  and  spirit,  of  character  and  mood,  objec- 
tive in  that  it  is  always  concerned  with  dramatic 
interplay  of  powers. 

The  ballad  and  the  song  chivalrous,  and  thence 
modern  lyricism.  It  comes  as  the  result  of  new 
social  development.  Social  democracy  elevates 
the  individual  to  supreme  importance;  society  is 
no  longer  an  end  in  itself;  it  exists  to  serve  the 
citizen.  Yet  he,  this  citizen,  this  individual, 
where  does  he  exist  ?     Certainly  he  is  not  incar- 


i 


Evolution  of  Poetic  Spirit       35 

nate  in  the  average  mortal,  neither  in  his  present 
consciousness  nor  in  his  historical  self.  The  in- 
dividual for  which  society  is  evolved  exists  only 
as  a  potential  self,  which  the  mortal  visions  and 
which  it  is  his  right — aye,  duty — to  aspire  to, 
though  never  his  power  to  snare  in  the  web  of 
present  reality;  but  indeed,  that  would  be  to  sub- 
mit once  more  to  the  ancient  autocrat,  the  mother- 
world;  for  she  it  was  who  held  us  in  bond,  blind 
slaves  of  the  hour,  and  would  have  denied  us  all 
right  of  vision. 

"  I  sing  the  song  of  myself,"  cries  Walt  Whit- 
man; and  here  we  have  true  index  to  the  poetic 
expression  of  the  new  era.  The  self  that  is  sung, 
however,  is  not  a  self  existing  in  time  or  space 
nor  a  self  shackled  to  ephemeral  Nature,  but  the 
ideal  individual  of  the  democracy,  composite  of 
all  the  finer  human  worths.  The  mode  of  ex- 
pression is  a  new  one — the  introspective  mode. 
Thereby,  it  will  be  remembered,  I  mean  no  ulcer- 
ous self-analysis,  but  a  quick  susceptibility  to  all 
impressions  arising  within  the  confines  of  the  soul, 
especially  to  moods  that  point  the  way  of  spiritual 
growth.  And  such  moods,  we  have  earlier  seen, 
seek  lyrical  expression.  The  lyric  precipitates 
the  essence  of  the  ideal,  it  projects  the  outline  and 
goal  of  evolution;  it  is  prophetic,  aspiring;  al- 
ways its  desire  is  to  flutter  free  from  the  laming 
immediacy  and  wing  to  what  lies  afar.  But  im- 
ages and  concepts  are  habited  in  the  harsh  fabrics 
of  the  near  reality.     Consequently  the  ideal,  ever 


36      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

elusive,  may  only  be  hinted  or  suggested  in  this 
mood  or  that.  This  is  why  all  better  lyrical  ex- 
pression ends  in  suspense — breathlessness  as  of 
too  ethereal  flight:  up,  up,  up,  eternally,  em- 
pyreans of  ever  deeper  blue  opening  airy  portals 
overhead.  What  I  am  trying  to  express,  this 
lyric  aspiration,  is  the  soul  of  Shelley's  Ode  to  a 
Skylark;  it  gives  the  echoing  resonance  to  the 
last  exultant  stanzas  of  Ado7iais  ;  it  is  the  inspira- 
tion of  Tennyson's 

Forward,   till    you  see  the  highest  Human  Nature  is 
divine ; 

in  Browning  it  is  ever3'^where,  perhaps  best 
worked  out  in  the  triumphant  pain  of  Sordello. 

We  find,  then,  in  this  democratic  idealisation, 
caught  now  in  the  fleeting  mood,  now  in  the 
wrought  character,  the  social  factor  at  the  source 
of  modern  lyricism.  But  the  reaction  has  yet  to 
be  taken  into  account.  For,  after  all,  we  are 
hopelessly  imprisoned  in  the  old  world  of  enchant- 
ments, helplessly  entangled  in  the  meshes  of  a 
brute  reality.  We  cannot  overthrow  the  tyranny 
of  proximate  fact.  If,  dreaming  of  wings,  we 
essay  to  fly,  it  is  only  to  discover  our  feet  fast- 
rooted  in  the  clay.  The  poet-soul  may  gaze  from 
its  gilded  casements,  but  the  bars  of  mortality 
mercilessly  prohibit  more  than  the  attitude  of 
flight.  Such  is  human  futility,  realisation  of 
which  sobers  the  most  buoyant  poetic  aspiration. 
The  reaction  is  variously  expressed:  Byron  dis- 


Evolution  of  Poetic  Spirit       37 

plays  a  profligate  contempt  for  mortality;  Shelley, 
with  sensitive  horror,  touches  the  emblems  of 
decay;  Poe  utters  drear  despair.  But  in  other 
direction  we  have  the  fine  Hebraic  faith  of  Whit- 
tier's  Eternal  Goodness,  Tennyson's  Crossing  the 
Bar  ;  or  again,  the  wonderful  comradeship  of  poet 
and  his  yearned- for  love  in  Browning's  apostrophe 
to  his  dead  wife, — 

O  Lyric  I/Ove,  half  angel  and  half  bird. 
And  all  a  wonder  and  a  wild  desire !  .  .  . 


Thus  environment — Nature  and  Society — fur- 
nishes the  context  of  poetr)^  But  its  significance  is 
individual;  nor,  I  think,  would  the  most  enthusi- 
astic expositor  of  social  origins  credit  the  commune 
with  more  than  the  favouring  atmosphere,  the  ex- 
citing occasion  of  song.  Even  where  joint  au- 
thorship arises  from  the  concordant  inspiration  of 
a  throng,  as  in  the  psean  of  victory  or  the  ballad 
built  up  from  the  jaunty  scoldings  of  maiden  and 
swain,  we  cannot  say  that  the  commune  is  the 
poet;  each  poetic  phrase,  each  added  increment  of 
song,  is  as  truly  its  maker's  own  as  if  wrought  in 
utter  solitude.  Mob  consciousness  has  no  voice 
of  its  own  save  hoarse  and  inarticulate  cry;  if  at 
times,  in  some  Marseillaise,  its  expression  rises 
above  the  brutal  to  human  seeming,  that  is  onlj^ 
because  a  De  Lisle  has  given  the  dumb  thing 
tongue.  All  the  mob  can  furnish,  all  that  any 
social  influence  can  furnish,  is  the  environment 


38       Poetry  and  the  Individual 

that  may  stimulate  to  poetic  fervour.  Society 
supplies  the  milieu,  but  the  poetry  is  achievement 
of  poets.  If  in  primitive  humanhood  communal 
inspiration  is  usual,  this  is  because  the  social  is 
the  engrossing  feature  of  individual  life.  So  it 
is,  too,  during  the  entire  ethical  period,  while 
character  is  being  formed  and  tempered.  But 
always  the  fundamental  process  is  the  evolution 
of  the  human  spirit,  in  typical  solitude.  The 
flash  of  individualism  which  in  the  far-off  days 
minted  new  imagery  in  the  mid-tremor  of  the 
dance  already  prophesied  a  time  when  man  might 
dare  his  own  soul  face  to  face,  while  the  soft 
whisperings  of  that  soul's  daemon  should  ring 
louder  than  the  tumult  of  multitudes. 

It  is  no  easy  task  even  broadly  to  bound  what 
we  mean  by  individualism.  When  we  speak  of 
an  individual  man  we  reckon  in  human  nature. 
If  he  is  an  Englishman,  we  reckon  in  the  Eng- 
lish disposition;  and  knowing  him  to  be  an  Eliza- 
bethan or  a  Ivondoner  of  Anne's  reign,  we  concede 
the  flavour  of  his  century.  Add  that  he  is  a  poet 
and  we  read  something  of  world-tradition  in  his 
character.  Race,  era,  and  social  condition,  all  go 
to  make  him  what  he  is — typical  of  each  of  them. 
To  assert  that  in  the  very  perfection  of  this  typi- 
fying character  lies  the  essence  of  individualism 
may  appear  arrant  sophistry;  yet  I  think  this 
comes  not  far  from  the  truth.  To  be  sure,  there 
must  also  be  taken  into  account  the  variable  ele- 
ment, the  quality  of  personality,  at  once  the  mys- 


I 


Evolution  of  Poetic  Spirit       39 

tery  and  tlie  soul  of  individual  manifestation,  from 
which  must  be  explained  all  that  charm  of  manner 
giving  distinction  to  genius  as  well  as  the  para- 
doxical necessity  that  even  the  typical  must 
possess  idiosyncrasy.  But  the  whole  theme  is 
complex  and  since  it  must  recur  for  more  pains- 
taking consideration,  I  venture  to  leave  it  for  the 
time  being  with  whatever  suggestion  of  riddle  it 
may  carry. 

Helpful  here  may  be  illustration.  I  realise 
that  I  risk  wearisome  loquacity,  but  I  am  con- 
cerned with  the  central  idea  of  the  development  I 
have  endeavoured  to  sketch,  and  it  must  not  be 
left  unclear.  Let  me  therefore  set  in  successive 
contrast  poems  which  in  showing  the  evolution 
of  mood  may  best  indicate  the  broadening  signifi- 
cance of  the  individual  factor. 

For  the  first,  what  better  than  the  oldest  Eng- 
lish canticle  ? 

Sumer  is  icumen  in, 

Lhude  sing  cuccu ! 
Growetli  sed,  and  bloweth  med, 

And  springth  the  wude  nu — 
Sing  cuccu ! 

Awe  bleteth  after  lomb, 

Lbouth  after  calve  cu ; 
Bulluc  sterteth,  bucke  vertetli, 

Murie  sing  cucu ! 

Cuccu,  cuccu,  well  singes  thu,  cuccu : 

Ne  swike  thu  naver  nu  ; 
Sing  cuccu,  nu,  sing  cuccu. 

Sing  cuccu,  sing  cuccu,  nu  ! 


40      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

We  can  hardly  conceive  anything  more  primi- 
tively near  to  Nature  than  this  little  song.  It 
has  the  child-like  absorption  in  immediate  en- 
vironment common  to  all  poetry  of  the  '  golden 
age,'  and  the  charming  naivete  of  the  prattler's 
diction:  the  pleased  commendation,  "  Well  singes 
thu,  cuccu,"  and  the  confiding  imperative  of  the 
refrain,  "  Sing  cuccu!  "  almost  compel  the  image 
of  an  eager  child's  face  uplifted  to  leafy  bowers. 
Withal  the  song  is  honestly  English  —  with  the 
Englishman's  leal  love  of  the  greensward.  As 
wholly  as  a  song  may  be,  it  is  objectively  con- 
ceived,— only  the  quaint,  joyous  music  telling  of 
the  singer  and  his  glee.  How  like  and  how  dif- 
ferent the  glad  melody  of  that  morning-call  in 
Cyinbeline, — 

Hark!  hark !  the  lark  at  heaven's  gate  sings, 

And  Phoebus  gins  arise, 
His  steeds  to  water  at  those  springs. 

On  chaliced  flowers  that  lies  ; 
And  winking  Mary-buds  begin 

To  ope  their  golden  eyes  : 
With  everything  that  pretty  bin, 

My  lady  sweet,  arise  ; 
Arise,  arise. 

There  is  still  the  keen  delight  in  open  day  and 
bird-music,  still  the  soft  joyousness,  the  eager 
flush,  expectancy  atiptoe.  But  now  the  voice 
of  the  singer  rings  clear,  vibrant,  personal, —  a 
youth's  voice  and  a  poet's,— and  the  richness  of 
his  mind  is  in  the  imagery,  and  the  power  of  his 


Evolution  of  Poetic  Spirit      41 

soul  in  the  impulsive  freedom  of  the  song.  It  is 
English,  it  is  Elizabethan,  it  is  Shakespearian; 
and  it  is  the  better  English  and  the  better  Eliza- 
bethan because  Shakespearian.  Yet  even  here  is 
not  expressed  full  personality;  there  is  only  a  tan- 
talising mood,  and  the  song  of  it  floating  afar  on 
the  airy  pinions  of  its  own  echoings, —  on  and 
away,  never  to  turn  impetuously  back  upon  the 
heart.  Not  till  the  poetic  conscience  is  aroused, 
to  the  stinging  quick,  shall  we  get  this  tidal  return 
and  the  full  meaning  of  poetic  inspiration  ;  nor  till 
the  clear  gaze  of  the  spirit  turns  inward,  resolving 
the  dim  mysteries  of  its  own  being,  shall  we  find 
in  song  the  broad  compass  of  human  nature. 
Type  of  the  lyric  maturity  is  Shellej^'s  Skylark, — 

Hail  to  thee  blithe  spirit ! 

Bird  thou  never  wert, 
That  frota  heaven,  or  near  it, 
Pourest  thy  full  heart 
In  profuse  strains  of  unpremeditated  art. 

But  I  dare  not  quote  it  here  in  full;  only  some 
stanzas  I  must  bring  to  mind  to  show  how  the  old 
note  of  joyance  is  changed  by  the  wakened  self- 
sensitiveness  to  wistftil  questioning  and  anxious 
aspiration.  Gaugings  of  mood  are  not  to  be  won 
without  disillusionment  nor  may  the  soul  be  bared 
to  unstartled  eyes.  Inevitably  the  sadness  of  wis- 
dom follows  self-knowledge;  but  only  through 
that  knowledge  is  attained  the  vision  of  the  soul's 
nobler  pattern  which,  however  distantly  ideal,  is 
yet  its  final  truth  and  the  essence  of  its  individual 


I 


42       Poetry  and  the  Individual 

worth.     It  is  this  that  Shelley  kens  from  the  sing- 
ing of  the  lark: 

Teach  us,  sprite  or  bird, 

What  sweet  thoughts  are  thine : 
I  have  never  heard 
Praise  of  love  or  wine 
That  panted  forth  a  flood  of  rapture  so  divine. 

Chorus  Hymeneal, 

Or  triumphal  chant. 
Matched  with  thine  would  be  all 

But  an  empty  vaunt, 
A  thing  wherein  we  feel  there  is  some  hidden  want. 

What  object  are  the  fountains 

Of  thy  happy  strain  ? 
What  fields,  or  waves,  or  mountains  ? 

What  shapes  of  sky  or  plain  ? 
What  love  of  thine  own  kind  ?  what  ignorance  of  pain? 

With  thy  clear  keen  joyance 

Languor  cannot  be : 
Shadow  of  annoyance 

Never  came  near  thee  : 
Thou  lovest :  but  ne'er  knew  love's  sad  satiety. 

Waking  or  asleep. 

Thou  of  death  must  deem 
Things  more  true  and  deep 

Than  we  mortals  dream, 
Or  how  could  thy  notes  flow  in  such  a  crystal  stream  ? 

We  look  before  and  after, 

And  pine  for  what  is  not : 
Our  sincerest  laughter 

With  some  pain  is  fraught ; 
Our  sweetest  songs  are  those  that  tell  of  saddest  thought. 


Evolution  of  Poetic  Spirit       43 

Yet  if  we  could  scorn 

Hate,  and  pride,  and  fear ; 
If  we  were  things  born 

Not  to  shed  a  tear, 
I  know  not  how  thy  joy  we  ever  should  come  near. 

Better  than  all  measures 

Of  delightful  sound. 
Better  than  all  treasures 

That  in  books  are  found, 
Thy  skill  to  poet  were,  thou  scorner  of  the  ground ! 

Teach  me  half  the  gladness 

That  thy  brain  must  know 
Such  harmonious  madness 

From  my  lips  would  flow, 
That  the  world  should  listen  then,  as  I  am  listening  now. 

II — POETRY  AS   DIVINATION   OP  LIFE 

Faith,  sucli  as  Shelley's,  in  the  power  of  poetry 
to  compel  and  to  be  worth  the  serious  attention 
of  the  world  is  as  ancient  as  poetic  impulse.  It 
is  surely  more  than  an  accidental  instinct  for 
rhythm  that  has  shaped  the  conviction,  universal 
in  pristine  humanity,  that  the  only  fit  and  accept- 
able address  to  powers  higher  than  mortal  must 
be  in  poetry.  There  seems  to  be  something  in 
the  very  nature  of  the  expression,  as  effort  to 
realise  beauty,  which  appeals  so  winningly  to 
human  intuition  as  to  leave  no  doubt  that  it  must 
be  mandatory  upon  the  gods.  And  hence  we  find 
among  barbarous  peoples  that  all  the  perils  of 
life  are  averted  and  all  the  desires  of  life  are 
summoned  by  singing.     Poetry  is  with  them  as 


44       Poetry  and  the  Individual 

essential  to  the  day's  living  as  meat  and  drink;  it 
is  their  means  of  intercourse  with  that  neighbour- 
world  bartering  destinies  with  the  human;  it  is  at 
once  a  language,  a  prayer,  and  a  magic  power 
whereby  the  two  dominions — man's  and  Nature's 
— are  brought  into  common  accord.  It  voices  the 
primitive  surety,  never  yet  subjected  to  doubt, 
that  what  seems  significant  is  so,  that  what  ap- 
peals to  vivid  desire  or  touches  the  heart,  therein 
possesses  a  like-meaning  verity  in  the  veritable 
reality.  This  verity  may  be  hidden,  or  mirage- 
like ever  recessive,  but  there  is  never  question 
that  in  its  substance  would  be  found  all  visioned 
delectation  could  it  but  be  clutched.  And  in  the 
pursuit,  the  wings  of  song  are  fleeter  than  the 
plodding  clay;  surely,  then,  not  less  to  be  nour- 
ished. So  it  is  that  poetry  is  a  part  of  the  main 
business  of  life. 

In  the  wiser  world  of  civilised  repressions,  ac- 
tion, apart  from  its  motives  and  apart  from  the 
mind's  engenderings,  is  accounted  wholly  effi- 
cient. Nature  is  looked  upon  as  a  kind  of  au- 
tomaton, and  whether  or  not  for  speculative 
purposes  such  a  view  satisfies,  for  practical  pur- 
poses, for  what  I  may  call  condensations  of  ex- 
perience, it  is  of  economising  service.  We  find 
that  we  don't  need  poetry  in  order  to  get  along  ; 
things,  and  even  souls,  require  no  significance  in 
order  to  act,  or  to  co-exist  with  action;  if  there 
are  meanings,  only  leisure  may  find  them  out, 
and  in  an  economic  world  leisure  is  loss. 


Evolution  of  Poetic  Spirit      45 

But  this  apergu  is  for  the  banal  mind,  or  at  least 
for  the  mind  in  its  banal  periods.  Even  in  the 
midst  of  our  economies,  there  lingers  some  rem- 
nant of  the  old  conviction.  If  we  have  lost  prac- 
tical faiths,  still  we  retain  aesthetic  faiths ;  if  we 
have  ceased  to  believe  in  the  fulness  of  the  real 
world,  we  are  willing,  in  playful  mood,  to  recog- 
nise a  make-believe  world  supplementing  its 
deficiencies.  And  strangely  enough  this  make- 
believe  world,  existent  yet  non-existent,  sits  in 
judgment  upon  the  real.  It  tells  us  what  the 
real  ought  to  be,  corrects  the  real  world's  mean- 
inglessness  and  emptiness,  and  sometimes,  spiting 
our  scepticism,  induces  courses  of  action  which 
tend  to  approximate  the  reality  to  the  make-be- 
lieve ;  on  occasion  it  even  overwhelms  our  whole 
mode  of  thought  and  forces  us  to  revamp  some  of 
the  smug  conceits  with  which  we  choose  to  cramp 
possibility.  Whether  for  practical  achievement 
or  for  scientific  advance,  imagination  always  pio- 
neers the  way,  and  in  easing  the  urgency  of  our 
modern  mode  of  applied  living,  as  in  overcoming 
its  narrow  poverties,  poetry  is  still  of  serious 
concern.  Its  office  may  be  thanklessly  ignored, 
but  it  is  not  to  be  wholly  dispensed  with  and 
failure  avoided. 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  the  poet  himself  has  never 
doubted  the  significance  of  his  work ;  poetry  never 
becomes  a  mere  ornament  of  his  life ;  it  is  a  part 
of  his  veriest  existence.  In  this  he  is  like  the 
primitive  man,   and   it   is  perhaps  not  without 


46      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

point, — as  arguing  the  venerableness,  and  so  a 
bionomic,  if  not  a  physical,  truth  in  the  poetic 
point  of  view, — that  it  is  through  poetic  instincts 
and  understandings  that  we  come  into  nearest 
sympathy  with  primitive  peoples;  it  is  their  art 
that  appeals  to  us  most  of  all,  their  perceptions  of 
beauty  which  seem  to  us  the  truest  gauge  of  their 
possible  elevation.  I  think  that  the  reason  for 
this  is  that  we  estimate  one  another  almost  wholly 
for  powers  of  insight;  there  is  a  sort  of  stamina  of 
personality,  just  as  there  is  a  physical  stamina, 
of  which  we  take  instinctive  reckoning,  setting 
to  its  credit  whatever  possible  forces  it  seems  to 
possess  and  whatever  degree  of  resistance  it  may 
offer  to  our  mastery.  This  is  our  habit  with  re- 
gard to  one  another;  it  is  no  less  our  habit  with 
regard  to  the  world  as  a  whole.  The  difference 
between  the  poet  and  other  men  (or  between  the 
poetic  and  other  moods)  is  that  the  poet  is  beset 
with  a  more  portentous  sense  of  the  world's  sig- 
nificance. He  feels,  with  convincing  keenness, 
that  limitations  of  physical  experience  must  be 
many  times  transcended  in  order  to  gather  all  of 
life's  riches.  He  would  break  through  the  mental 
chrysalis  in  which  human  conceptions  are  ever 
striving  to  confine  human  possibility,  abandoning 
the  comfortable  restrictions  of  a  world  of  law  for 
the  mere  buoyancy  of  spiritual  expansion. 

But  in  so  doing  he  would  not  deem  that  he 
were  changing  the  true  for  the  false.  All  poets 
are  more  or  less  Platonists.     The  restriction  and 


Evolution  of  Poetic  Spirit      47 

sobriety  of  the  weighable,  vendible  world  seem 
to  stand  to  the  true,  as  Plato's  World  of  Appear- 
ances to  the  World  of  Ideas, — yielding  shadow  in 
place  of  substance,  paucity  in  place  of  fulness. 
Mere  ponderability —  laws  of  gravitation  and  the 
like  —  furnishes  perhaps  the  heft  of  afifairs;  it 
gives  a  handy  test,  but  it  cannot  designate  their 
use  nor  give  any  occasion  for  employment.  If 
the  world  means  anything,  its  meaning  must 
transcend  the  cosmic  machinery :  why,  then, 
hobble  the  mind  with  the  apparatus  ? 

Poetry,  I  take  it,  justifies  itself  from  this  point 
of  departure.  It  comes  as  divination  pronouncing 
what  life  means,  that  is,  telling  the  human  moods 
of  things.  We  ma}^  object  to  its  conclusions,  but 
we  have  no  right  to  deny  its  method  or  serious 
purpose.  If  we  are  to  interpret  it  justly  we  must 
take  it  at  its  own  account  and  concede  its  natural 
integrity.  To  be  sure,  in  the  course  of  civilisa- 
tion, it  has  become  less  and  less  involved  in  the 
substance  of  our  thought ;  but  it  has  not  disap- 
peared, neither  the  need  nor  the  service  of  it,  and 
so  we  may  still  reckon  it  as  a  part  of  life's  reality; 
it  is  2.  fact  to  be  factually  dealt  with  and  a  fact 
strangely  pleading  its  own  supreme  significance. 
In  order  to  comprehend  this  pleading,  in  order  to 
estimate  this  significance,  certain  larger  questions 
must  be  raised — as  to  our  criteria  of  worth,  as  to 
our  understanding  of  individualism,  as  to  the  na- 
ture and  aim  of  poetic  instinct.  These  are  now  to 
be  my  concern.     Meanwhile  it  is  not  amiss  to 


48      Poetry  and  the  Individual 


emphasise  that  the  change  which  has  been  wrought 
in  the  evolution  of  poetic  consciousness  is  not  of 
light  import.  Modernity,  in  imagination  most 
of  all,  is  often  considered  a  kind  of  disease ;  but 
there  is  always  the  chance  that  it  is  our  standards 
which  are  diseased.  The  new  consciousness 
itself  is  mainly  a  feature  of  the  modernisation  ot 
the  world,  in  its  troublousness  and  unrest  reflect- 
ing the  strain  to  which  the  altered  conditions  are 
subjecting  the  human  mind,  for  we  have  met  many 
a  sorry  turn  in  the  new  order  and  have  not  yet 
fairly  ascertained  the  value  of  our  advance.  To 
the  cost  of  it  we  must  count  our  scepticisms,  in- 
tellectual and  aesthetic  as  well  as  religious,  which 
prevent  our  feeling  enthusiasms  in  the  old  whole- 
hearted way;  and  to  the  cost  of  it  we  must  also 
count  that  sense  of  abandonment  and  isolation, 
that  pain  of  self-consciousness,  which  modern 
specialisation  compels;  the  ancient  communes  are 
broken  up  and  we  wander  our  several  ways  alone. 
This  troublousness,  this  scepticism,  this  isola- 
tion, are  the  characteristics  which  have  most 
strongly  impressed  our  modern  poetry;  and  it  is 
the  spirit  which  they  create,  I  take  it,  that  Mr. 
Symonds  has  called  the  "lyric  cry."  For  it 
would  seem,  in  truth,  that  the  one  appropriate 
likeness  for  the  lyric  outpouring  in  which  man 
utters  his  yearning  for  beauty  is  found  in  the  elo- 
quent inarticulation  of  primitive  joys  and  fears,  in 
the  breath  of  passion,  in  a  cry.  Though  in  our 
age  elsewhere  all  is  clarity  of  thought,   poetic 


Evolution  of  Poetic  Spirit      49 

utterance  is  still  but  dumbly  metaphorical.  We 
know  full  well, —  and  in  the  wide  community  of 
this  knowledge  is  the  measure  of  our  attainment, — 
how  pathetically  futile  must  ever  be  effort  to  ex- 
press the  eternal  hoped-for  in  the  weak  phrases 
of  mortal  speech,  how  idle  the  deeming  that  the 
spirit's  need  can  ever  find  habiting  even  in  the 
most  ethereal  fancy  or  be  but  hauntingly  pat- 
terned in  marbles  of  Pentelicus. 

Yet  the  real  character  of  the  modern  spirit  and 
the  full  significance  of  the  lyric  cry  is  not  to  be 
defined  in  failure.  The  pain  and  the  unrest  are 
rather  symptoms  of  the  stress  than  expression  of 
its  object.  That  object  is  the  better  revelation  of 
human  destiny  and  the  better  delineation  of  the 
ideal  personality.  The  lyric  cry  thus  interpreted 
is  a  judgment  as  well  as  a  desire.  It  is  a  judg- 
ment of  the  earnestness  of  life  and  of  the  keen 
vitality  of  spiritual  being.  It  is  a  j  udgment  of  the 
worth  of  life  and  a  demand  for  clearer  revelation 
of  that  worth.  It  is  a  plea  for  recognition  of  the 
human  right  in  the  world  and  the  world's  des- 
tinies, and  it  is  the  high  seal  of  the  granting  of 
that  right.     It  is  man's  measure  of  God. 

4 


CHAPTER  III 

THE  WORTH  OF  LIFE 
I — MAN  THE   MEASURE 

IT  is  no  easy  task  to  interpret  in  the  rational 
way  what  is  conceived  and  expressed  in  the 
aesthetic.  To  do  this  we  are  forced  to  remove 
from  their  native  province,  and  so  to  pervert,  the 
experiences  with  which  we  have  to  deal.  At  the 
same  time  perhaps  the  only  justification  of  critical 
study  of  any  aesthetic  product  is  to  be  found  in 
such  transformation,  and  certainly  there  comes  a 
point  when  the  criticism  must  either  proceed  by 
conceptual  analysis  or  cease  to  be  profitable. 
First  of  all  there  must  be  some  precise  notion  of 
the  conditions  which  determine  our  standards  of 
worth  and  of  the  qualities  which  make  up  its  sub- 
stance. For  the  ascertainment  of  this,  there  is 
no  method  better  than  that  inquisitive  portrayal  of 
customary  conceptions  in  which  the  Greek  mind 
so  delighted;  and  accordingly  my  analysis  aims 
but  at  exposition  of  what  is  latent  in  our  thought 
and  more  especially  of  what  is  implied  in  the 
character  and  design  of  those  common  activities 
50 


The  Worth  of  Life  51 

which  constitute  the  business  of  life  and  form  our 
ultimate  confession  of  faith  in  its  meaning. 

Such  activities  are  of  three  general  types.  First 
and  most  obvious  is  the  type  of  action  prompted 
by  appetite,  social  instinct,  or  utilitarian  calcula- 
tion,— action  tending  to  preserve  and  perpetuate 
life.  Second  is  the  type  which  designs  to  render 
life  satisfying  or  bring  to  realisation  whatever 
ideal  we  consider  to  be  the  fitting  end  and  aim  of 
human  existence.  The  third  type  is  constituted 
by  impedimenta :  for  just  as  the  body  is  burdened 
by  useless  vestiges  of  outworn  organs,  so  among 
the  body's  activities  are  to  be  found  many  dissi- 
pations of  energy  which  have  long  ceased,  or 
possibly  have  not  yet  begun,  either  to  serve  any 
discoverable  utility  or  to  meet  any  creditable  need. 

In  estimating  the  significances  of  life  we  may 
pass  by  this  third  type  of  action.  The  outworn 
functions  are  only  of  academical  or  of  fretful  in- 
terest; they  are  useful  only  as  historical  indices 
or  as  trials  to  the  patience.  Nature,  we  have 
been  wont  to  hear,  is  economical;  but  the  dictum 
rests  less  upon  any  direct  evidence  of  her  economy 
than  upon  a  stalwart  faith  in  her  ultimate  appro- 
priation of  all  humanly  valuable  virtues.  Premis- 
ing that  we  see  with  eyes  contrived  to  note  only 
the  human  use  of  things,  Nature  appears  to  us 
much  more  the  profligate  than  the  careful  house- 
wife. She  is  a  bounteous  but  an  undiscriminat- 
ing  giver,  seldom  consulting  either  our  wish  or 
our  need,  leaving  us  to  adapt  ourselves  to  her 


52      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

whim  as  best  we  may.  Surely  it  is  a  tactless,  a 
cruel  benevolence  that  would  reconcile  to  death 
with  the  pains  of  disease!  And  it  is  an  equally 
tactless,  equally  cruel  bungling  of  destinies  that 
affronts  human  dignity  with  a  tic,  debases  the  in- 
tellect to  imitations  of  cretinism,  or  condemns  the 
brain  to  its  dreary  lock-step  with  the  stomach. 
Yet  such  are  the  bootless  gratuities  constituting 
our  impedimenta. 

More  promise  of  profit  is  in  that  type  of  activities 
looking  to  the  preservation  of  species.  Environ- 
ment has  created,  is  still  creating  us,  the  biolo- 
gists say.  It  is  our  interest  to  dove-tail  into  the 
framework  of  circumstance  as  nicely  as  possible. 
All  our  elemental  activities  are  strivings  for  finer 
adjustment.  If  we  are  to  get  along  in  the  world, 
we  must  be  instinctive  courtiers  of  Nature, — study 
her  mood  and  wile,  her  bent  of  to-day  and  her 
promise  for  to-morrow.  Only  while  we  please 
her  are  our  heads  safe  :  her  despotism  is  absolute, 
her  favour  fickle.  Now  all  this  is  time-serving. 
We  do  not  live  just  to  eat  and  breathe.  Certain 
satisfactions  may  attend  these  functions;  they  may 
even  be  capable  of  some  adornment, — sweet  sauce 
with  the  bitter  necessity;  but  the  necessity  is 
fundamental.  If  the  gnawing  of  the  black  loaf 
were  sole  reward,  how  ignominious  the  toil  and 
sweat!  But  bread  means  something  better;  bread 
means  life;  and  it  is  because  we  deem  life  to  be 
more  than  a  satisfaction  of  appetites  that  bread- 
winning   is    dignified.     The   labour  and   travail 


The  Worth  of  Life  53 

which  mere  existence  demands — the  dumb,  blind 
energy  of  living — is  but  expression  of  a  passionate 
intuition  of  divinity  in  life,  an  intuition  which 
immemorially  has  inspired  roses  to  burst  through 
ceremental  clay,  butterflies  to  sunder  cofiBning 
chrysalides. 

Let  us  consider  man's  instinctive  estimate  of 
his  activities  as  it  is  revealed  in  modes  of  thought. 
The  problem  of  knowledge  is  approached  by  the 
human  mind  in  two  characteristic  ways.  There 
is  first  the  way  of  natural  science,  the  method 
acquisitive.  The  aim  of  science  is  to  acquire  and 
systematise  facts,  the  systematisation  being  but  a 
means  to  new  acquisitions.  The  whole  spirit  is 
inductive  and  aspires  to  an  ideal  description  of 
reality  which  may  be  likened  to  a  card-catalogue 
of  the  contents  of  the  universe,  with  each  item 
unimpeachably  relevant  to  some  utility.  Utility 
is  the  key  to  the  catalogue  and  the  justification 
for  the  effort  expended  in  creating  it.  * '  Know- 
ledge for  its  own  sake  ?  "  Yes,  I  know;  but  what 
is  knowledge  ?  It  is  human,  instrumental  know- 
ledge,— our  short-hand  script  of  the  slow-unwind- 
ing scroll  of  Reality.  Knowledge  is  not  the 
Truth;  it  is  not  the  substance  of  what  is  written; 
it  is  naught  that  exists  for  itself  or  by  reason  of 
itself.  We  acquire  only  such  fragments  as  Nature 
deems  fitting,  only  such  as  she  has  given  us  e5'es 
to  read, — what  faulty  eyes  we  are  well  aware, — 
and  we  value  them  wholly  for  the  sake  of  what  they 
enable  us  to  foresee.     Foresight  and  preparation, 


54       Poetry  and  the  Individual 

garnered  grain  for  the  time  of  famine, — there 
the  worth  lies.  It  is  the  prophetic  faculty  of 
science  that  dazzles  popular  imagiuatiou, —  and 
rightly.  True  prophecy  enables  adequate  adapta- 
tion, readiness  to  seize  gain  at  the  golden  oppor- 
tunity; and  the  gain  is  measure  of  the  means. 
No  doubt  the  scientist,  with  ascetic  abnegation  of 
self-interest,  pursues  his  laborious  search  for  nat- 
ural law  with  little  count  of  lost  years,  so  a  hint 
of  truth  be  won  or  even  a  false  leading  proven 
false.  But  his  task  must  not  be  judged  from  his 
consciousness  alone.  His  abnegation,  his  re- 
nunciation of  human  desire  to  the  end  that  he 
may  observe  unbiased,  is  after  all  personal  and 
circumscribed.  But  his  achievement  is  social, 
and  it  is  judged  by  its  capacity  for  being  assimi- 
lated into  the  body  of  human  knowledge — that 
proficient  tool  for  man's  advancement,  keen 
weapon  for  the  winning  of  evolutional  battle-fields. 
Natural  laws  are  formulae  of  the  way  things  act, 
which  is  to  say  that  they  are  the  paraphernaha  of 
prophecy,  recipes  for  the  acquirement  of  goods. 
So  the  community  judges,  and  so  Nature  when 
she  creates  the  finders-out  of  her  secret  ways. 

Man  is  the  measure  of  all  things  :  the  phrase  is 
anciently  trite,  but  it  deserves  emphasis.  Science, 
by  reason  of  her  abnegation,  her  passion  for  im- 
personality, endeavours  to  escape  as  far  as  pos- 
sible from  an  anthropocentric  view  of  things. 
The  merest  flavour  of  humanising  bias  must  be 
shunned.     In  physics  and  chemistry  we  do  indeed 


The  Worth  of  Life  55 

find  hardly  a  suspicion  of  the  taint.  Not  that  the 
fact  is  avoided, — man  is  still  the  measure;  but  the 
meters  and  rules  employed  in  these  sciences  belong 
to  so  prosaic  a  portion  of  human  experience  or 
their  anthropic  character  is  so  cunningly  con- 
cealed under  an  aspect  of  abstrusity  that  they 
furnish  no  inviting  handsel  of  familiarity;  ergs 
and  atomic  weights  do  not  appeal  to  vital  imagi- 
nation. The  biological  sciences  are  less  fortunate. 
Biology  is  the  science  of  life  and  its  laws  must  be 
expressed  in  the  language  of  motive.  Herein  is 
a  ready-stored  magazine  for  emotional  explosions. 
The  great  speculative  war  of  the  last  century — 
between  Science  and  Revelation — was  waged  al- 
most exclusively  in  the  biological  field.  The 
evolution  of  life,  human  and  all,  from  procreant 
chaos,  was  a  doctrine  touching  man's  destiny  too 
near  to  be  passed  without  challenge.  Yet  biology 
has  done  its  best  to  remain  objective,  sderitijic ;  it 
has  dealt  with  life  from  the  point  of  view  of  en- 
vironment, and  has  handled  subjective  elements 
gingerly.  As  a  result,  at  the  basis  of  its  procla- 
mations is  a  very  delicate  reasoning  in  a  circle. 
All  its  laws  are  concocted  with  two  prime  in- 
gredients,—  assumption  that  perpetuation  is  the 
purpose  of  life;  assumption  that  life  itself  is  con- 
stituted of  perpetuative  activities,  or  at  least  is 
made  intelligible  by  them.  Otherwise  stated, 
life  is  an  expression  of  utilities  which  are  at 
once  its  measure  and  its  cause;  adaptation  leads 
to   survival,  survival   proves  and   approves   the 


56      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

adaptation.  The  formula  could  hardly  have  stood 
unassailed  were  it  not  for  a  major  assumption 
implied  in  it,  which  science  has  been  chary  of  ex- 
pressing or  has  taken  for  granted.  The  assump- 
tion is  that  life  is  in  itself  worth  while,  that  it 
contains  or  promises  something  more  than  mere 
agencies  of  perpetuation,  something  which  gives 
it  a  value  beyond  any  that  we  can  find  in  its  utile 
factors.  Utility  implies  usefulness  to  some  end; 
life  must  be  more  than  a  composite  of  utilities 
subserving  their  own  repetition  in  order  that  any 
utility  may  be  significant.  Every  law  of  biologi- 
cal science  tacitly  expresses  faith  in  the  existence 
of  a  worth,  beyond  the  content  of  the  science, 
which  is  the  ground  of  that  law's  intelligibility. 
Moreover,  the  laws  of  all  the  sciences  and  all  our 
scientific  knowledge  rest  upon  assumption  of  this 
worth;  for  these  laws  and  this  knowledge  are 
themselves  utilities,  serving  ulterior  ends,  alone 
for  the  sake  of  which  they  exist. 

"  Man  is  the  measure  of  all."  We  have  seen 
how  the  very  fact  of  life  is  a  confession  of  faith 
in  the  life's  value,  how  the  activities  which  main- 
tain it  plead  for  this  faith.  And  now  we  have 
come  to  see,  also,  how  all  the  toilsome  acquisition 
of  science  refers  for  its  justification  to  that  in  the 
nature  of  man,  which,  through  its  renunciation,  has 
enabled  him  to  attain  to  science  and  knowledge. 

But  if  science  must  assume  and  is  content  to 
assume  that  there  is  some  final  value  in  life  by 
reason  of  which  its  labours  and  accjuisitions  be- 


The  Worth  of  Life  57 

come  valuable,  yet  does  it  not  include  within  its 
province  the  searching  out  of  this  value.  For 
that  task  another  mode  of  apprehension  is  requi- 
site, which,  in  contrast  to  the  acquisitive,  may  be 
termed  the  interpretative  mode.  It  is  the  mode 
of  philosophy  and  of  art;  for  however  diverse 
their  methods  may  be,  speculation  and  imagina- 
tion have  always  been  concerned  with  a  common 
problem  —  the  critical  estimation  of  the  worth  of 
life  and  the  determination  of  man's  place  in  Na- 
ture. The  task  of  science  ends  with  an  adequate 
counting  and  tagging  of  facts  and  the  working 
out  of  logarithmic  tabulations.  There  begins  the 
task  of  art  and  philosophy, — to  formulate  a  theory 
of  values  with  reference  to  those  facts.  And  so 
long  as  the  task  of  the  scientist  is  incomplete, — 
while  human  experience  lasts, —  so  long  will  be 
unfinished  the  work  of  poet  and  philosopher. 

Of  the  three  types  or  classes  of  human  activi- 
ties, mentioned  at  the  beginning  of  this  chapter, 
the  second  I  defined  as  constituted  by  such  as 
design  to  render  life  satisfying  or  bring  to  reali- 
sation whatever  ideal  we  consider  its  fitting  aim 
to  be, —  that  is,  such  as  strive  to  realise  that 
best  worth  in  which  we  instinctively  believe.  It 
is  apparent  now  that  philosophy  and  art  are  pre- 
eminent among  such  activities,  since  it  is  their 
very  function  to  discover  and  interpret  to  us  the 
worth  of  life.  But  we  should  note  a  difference 
between  them.  Philosophy  is  analytical ;  its 
method  shares  much  with  that  of  science,  being 


58      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

utilitarian  and  cartographical ;  the  philosopher 
aims  to  create  for  us  a  chart  whereby  we  may 
orient  our  course  amid  the  confusion  of  the  world 
and  steer  toward  that  fitting  goal  which  he  has 
discovered  for  us.  But  the  method  of  art  is 
synthetical;  it  selects  from  the  manifold  of  experi- 
ence the  seemly  and  harmonious  and  forms  there- 
with the  pattern  of  that  toward  which  we  should 
or  do  aspire.  Art  relies  upon  sympathetic  attrac- 
tion and  instinctive  recognition  of  the  good,  not 
upon  logic;  and  it  seems,  therefore,  to  exist  for 
itself  rather  than  for  any  purpose.  Indeed,  in  so 
far  as  it  truly  reproduces  the  highest  worth  of  life 
it  does  exist  for  its  own  sake  alone.  But  pre- 
eminent as  they  are,  I  would  not  have  it  under- 
stood that  art  and  philosophy  are  the  sole  or  even 
the  essential  examples  of  the  second  class  of  ac- 
tivities. That  were  a  poor  account  of  life.  In  so 
far  as  they  are  utilitarian — that  is,  existing  for  an 
end  beyond  themselves  (and  philosophy  is  almost 
wholly  so,  and  art  in  all  its  moral  aspects) — they 
serve  only  to  indicate  the  realities  which  constitute 
the  value  of  life.  But  the  realities  themselves,  the 
actual  worth,  must  be  sought  elsewhere, —  in  the 
mood  which  lies  behind  all  expression  and  in 
the  ideal  character  toward  which  human  nature 
evolves. 

II — THE  IMPORT  OF   PESSIMISM 

But  the  positive  worth  of  life  is  not  universally 
conceded  and  any  categorical  afl&rmation  of  it  is 


The  Worth  of  Life  59 

open  to  fatal  challenge.  Proof  that  life  is  good 
cannot  hinge  upon  logical  premises, — is,  in  fact, 
in  all  strict  sense  impossible.  Any  establishment 
of  the  proposition  must  be  by  free  assent  of  con- 
sciousness. Life  must  be  made  to  seem  good  to 
whomsoever  would  deny  its  worth,  the  denial 
must  be  felt  to  be  false  to  the  soul's  conviction, 
before  the  denier  is  refuted.  I  may  oppose  my 
afl&rmation  to  his  negation,  but  contradiction 
cannot  establish  my  case.  There  is  no  objective 
criterion  governing  decision. 

Denial  of  the  value  of  existence  has  been  iter- 
ated throughout  the  history  of  civilisation  with 
an  emphasis  that  cannot  leave  its  sincerity  in 
doubt.  World- weariness  is  as  old  as  Buddha  and 
Ecclesiastes.  In  every  generation  there  have 
been  sages  who,  weighing  the  ill  and  the  good  of 
being,  on  the  scale's  register  have  read  the  good 
wanting.  In  every  stadium  of  society  there  have 
appeared  miseries  of  mortality  for  which  the  best 
human  consolation  could  only  be,  "  Curse  God 
and  die!  "  Whole  races  of  mankind  have  beheld 
their  Paradise,  their  Nirvana,  in  annihilation; 
and  through  dark  centuries  other  races  have  cried 
out  against  the  seductive  wiles  of  a  usurous  flesh, 
resting  final  hope  in  a  life  to  come.  ' '  To  be,  or 
not  to  be  ?  " — the  question  has  been  too  often  and 
too  poignantly  uttered  to  permit  its  disregard. 
Especially  in  modern  times,  when  a  sense  of 
vanitas  rerum  more  and  more  englooms  the  sensi- 
tive mind,  while  even  the  man  of  the  street  finds 


6o      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

answerless  his  self-posed  "  What  's  the  use?  " — 
not  the  most  obstinately  predilect  optimism  can 
blind  us  to  the  growing  canker. 

Its  meaning  and  its  course,  then  ?  Is  life  a  fail- 
ure, bankrupt  ?  or  is  the  vialadie  du  si^cle  merely 
an  ephemeral  contagion  ravaging  the  overplus  of 
an  opulent  race-expansion  ?  For  an  answer  we 
must  make  some  analysis  of  pessimism,  —  its 
mood,  its  expression,  and  its  natural  import. 

The  aim  of  philosophy  and  art,  I  have  said,  is 
to  '  place '  man  in  the  order  of  Nature.  This  is 
as  true  of  the  work  of  the  pessimistic  philosopher 
and  artist  as  of  any  other.  Their  pessimism  is 
the  outcome  of  their  endeavour;  and  it  is  the  ex- 
pression of  their  inability  to  find  satisfactory  com- 
pensation for  the  ills  of  living.  They  have  sought 
for  the  satisfying  worth;  in  some  sense  they  have 
established  a  standard  and  created  an  ideal,  and 
their  pessimism  comes  as  a  too  keen  realisation  of 
the  unattainableness  of  this  ideal.  It  is  not  that 
all  good  is  denied  to  life;  seldom  this  is  so;  but 
the  adequate  good,  the  net  asset,  has  been  sought 
in  vain.  Some  consolation  may  be  found,  half 
consolatory.  At  times  it  is  the  appetitive  grati- 
fication of  high  living;  at  times  a  graceful  gaiety, 
— Omar's  mood  and  ours, — as  of  nobles  jesting  to 
the  guillotine. 

What,  without  asking,  hither  hurried  Whence? 
And  without  asking,  Whither  hurried  hence  ! 

Oh  many  a  Cup  of  this  forbidden  Wine 
Must  drown  the  memory  of  that  insolence ! 


The  Worth  of  Life  6i 

Even  in  the  gaiety  of  this  most  dulcet  of  syba- 
rites, how  palpi tantly  nude  the  keening  note, 
how  piercing  the  despair! 

Now  such  a  mood  must  be  accepted  at  self- 
valuation.  There  are  no  objective  standards  or 
scales  whereby  moods  may  be  weighed  or  tested 
or  corrected.  They  are  themselves  the  weights 
and  the  measures.  Nevertheless  it  is  worth  our 
while  to  study  the  mood.  Its  implication  and 
natural  history  are  significant.  And  for  the  first 
of  these,  the  implication, — what  is  pessimism  but 
defeated  aspiration  ?  It  is  not  brutish  denial;  it 
is  only  failure.  Its  whole  significance  is  derived 
from  an  apprehension  of  an  ideal,  the  attainment 
of  which,  were  that  possible,  would  be  worth  all 
endeavour.  Thence  I  might  go  on  to  show  how 
all  ideals  are  founded  in  reality,  so  that  the  mere 
conception  of  them  is  promise  of  eventual  realisa- 
tion. But  such  argument  would  be  metaphysi- 
cal and  to  all  practical  intents  a  begging  of  the 
question.  There  is  commonly  a  smack  of  chi- 
canery in  reasonings  which  speculate  in  meta- 
physical futurities;  they  fail  to  confute  honest 
conviction;  and  if  pessimism  be  honest, —  as  too 
often  the  sternest  of  deeds  proves  it  so, — we  must 
reckon  with  it  frankly  and  account  for  it  fairly. 
I/Ct  us  pass,  then,  to  an  objective  consideration 
of  it  and  try  to  find  its  cause  and  consequence  in 
biological  history. 

Giving  heed  to  the  social  circumstance  in  which 
pessimism  characteristically  appears,  we  note  that 


62      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

it  is  encountered  oftenest  under  conditions  of 
cultural  well-being.  It  finds  little  or  no  place  in 
primitive  and  elemental  society,  even  when  life  is 
hard-driven.  The  snarl  of  the  famishing  wolf, 
the  exorcisms  of  the  hungry  savage  are  prompted 
by  aching  appetite.  There  is  no  under-note  at- 
tuned to  cosmic  destinies,  no  subtlety  of  We/i- 
schmerz.  The  hunger  satisfied,  the  world  is  good 
again.  Wherever  suffering  is  wholly  incident  to 
the  struggle  for  existence,  where  the  exclusive 
THotif  is  life-preservation,  pessimism  does  not 
occur.  It  comes  only  with  some  degree  of  free- 
dom from  this  struggle.  It  comes  in  a  grade 
of  society  which  has  evolved  reflective  self-con- 
sciousness,—  in  a  society,  therefore,  which  has 
won  leisure  to  think.  It  cannot  be  interpreted 
as  wrung  from  the  pains  of  the  battle  for  life;  it 
is  utterance  of  a  victor  in  this  battle.  To  be  sure, 
in  one  form  —  the  altruistic  form  of  sympathy  — 
pessimism  is  intensified  by  the  woeful  spectacle 
of  the  conflict.  A  main  source  of  the  threnodic 
strain  of  modern  song  is  torturing  compassion  for 
the  victims  of  Nature's  aeon-long  holocausts.  But 
such  compassion  is  not  stirred  by  any  real  com- 
prehension of  its  object;  it  is  not  suffered  sui 
juris.  The  sympathy  aroused  (and  I  am  not  now 
speaking  of  direct  sympathy,  pain  for  pain,  grief 
for  grief,  but  of  reflective,  moralising  sympathy) 
is  for  no  mere  hardships  and  physical  agonies  in 
the  lost  lives.  Rather  it  is  for  defeated  possibilities, 
— the  pathos  of  cramped  and  undeveloped  being, 


The  Worth  of  Life  63 

of  the  worm  that  might  have  become  a  butterfly 
in  fairer  seasons,  of  the  gnarled  cart-horse  that 
might  have  lorded  it  over  the  fiercest  stallions  of 
the  plain  but  for  the  hard  mastery  of  man,  of  the 
dwarfed  human  soul  that  might  have  grown  to 
genius  in  kindlier  circumstance.  Failure  to 
grasp  a  hoped-for  good,  the  hopelessness  of  the 
conflict  between  real  and  ideal,  from  these  springs 
pessimism.  Sympathy,  if  you  will,  but  self-sym- 
pathy; for  neither  the  worm  foredoomed  to  die  in 
wormhood,  nor  the  town-prisoned  horse,  nor  the 
dwarfed  soul,  feels  the  pathos  of  its  incomplete 
life,  but  only  such  a  one  as,  having  achieved  in- 
sight, may  suffer  for  them. 

Pessimism,  then,  appears  when  the  struggle  for 
mere  existence  has  become  transformed  into  a 
struggle  for  ideal  existence.  The  demands  of 
physical  welfare  are  to  a  degree  supplied.  The 
strain  of  the  hunt  for  meat  and  warmth  is  eased. 
There  is  a  vital  surplus  to  be  spent  on  other  win- 
nings. There  is  still  a  striving:  life  is  activity, 
activity  is  endeavour.  The  spur  to  evolutional 
growth  is  an  always-unfolding  need  for  some- 
thing just  beyond  present  reach.  Each  elevation 
of  man's  estate — 

As  he  stands  on  the  heights  of  his  life  with  a  glimpse  of 
a  height  that  is  higher — 

invites  to  yet  diviner  altitudes.  But  the  new 
struggle  is  on  a  plane  far  removed  from  the 
ancient,   sordid  strife, —  a  plane  which   permits 


64      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

tragedy.  And  Nature  does  not  bring  forth  the 
higher  life  without  labour  and  pang.  Many  are 
started  on  the  way,  but  clogged  by  the  needs  of  a 
tyrannous  flesh,  few  win  more  than  Pisgah-views 
of  their  Canaan.  They  are  born  to  die  of  their 
desire.  It  is  this  Tantalus-torture  that  makes 
pessimists  of  us. 

At  the  outset  of  this  discussion  I  discriminated 
such  human  activities  as  lead  to  life-perpetua- 
tion from  such  as  lead  to  realisation  of  the  ideal 
worth.  It  now  appears  that  the  two  sorts  con- 
flict, the  one  withholding  the  other  in  seeking 
its  own  free  exercise.  The  history  of  civilisation 
shows  how  fundamental  and  seemingly  inevitable 
the  conflict  is.  Memphis  and  Babylon,  Athens 
and  Rome,  give  rise  to  culture  at  an  eventual 
price  of  national  suicide.  In  order  that  the 
higher  activities  of  life  might  be  cultivated  to  the 
utmost,  preservative  activities  were  relegated  to 
slaves  and  mercenaries, —  at  what  cost  we  know. 
Commonly  the  decay  and  overthrow  of  ancient 
culture  is  laid  at  the  door  of  vice  and  eflfeminacy. 
Doubtless  these  diseases  of  civilisation  account  for 
much;  but  the  distinction  of  part  out  of  part  is 
unfair.  Civilisation  must  be  reckoned  with  as  a 
whole;  the  sterility  of  degeneracy  and  of  genius 
are  said  to  be  of  a  piece,  and  in  any  event  patho- 
logical stigmata  are  never  quite  obliterated  in  the 
healthiest  evolution.  Modern  civilisation  repeats 
in  modem  guise  the  ancient  tale.  The  example 
of  France  is  notorious.     In  England  the  rate  of 


The  Worth  of  Life  65 

racial  increase  rapidly  falls.  Kven  in  the  United 
States  there  is  a  constant  diminution  of  birth-rate 
in  our  Anglo-Saxon  population.  I  know  of 
a  community  in  rural  New  England,  not  5'et 
touched  by  foreign  invasion,  which  notably  illus- 
trates. The  land  is  fertile;  the  markets  are  near; 
the  farmsteads  all  bear  the  aspect  of  prosperity. 
Certainly  there  is  no  dearth  of  the  fruit  of  the  soil. 
And  yet  the  community  is  almost  childless.  The 
little  schoolhouse,  once  but  a  narrow  accommo- 
dation, has  been  closed  for  more  than  a  quarter 
of  a  century.  The  families  in  the  prosperous- 
looking  homes  are  often  composed  of  bachelors 
and  maidens,  the  unwedded  offspring  of  the 
generation  gone.  There  are  no  young  couples; 
scarcely  a  youngster  of  pairing  age.  What  few 
children  are  to  be  found  are  the  children  of  old 
men.  A  boy  was  born  recently,  the  first  birth  in 
the  neighbourhood  for  thirteen  years  and  the  first 
in  the  house,  continuously  inhabited,  since  the 
boy's  father  had  been  born  there  over  fifty  years 
before.  The  whole  community  dwells  in  a  Haw- 
thornesque  atmosphere  of  peaceful,  hoary  decay. 
In  the  still  July  pastures  the  huckleberries  run 
rank  riot,  and  the  summer  woods,  green  and 
beautiful,  rarely  re-echo  the  noisiness  of  children 
at  play.  The  American  farmer  and  workingman 
boast  a  standard  of  living  higher  than  that  of  any 
co-labourer  in  the  world;  but  it  is  not  obtained 
without  price,  and  that  price  their  very  existence. 
In  our  great  cities  there  are  populous  East  Sides 


66      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

teeming  with  child-life;  in  contrast,  not  merely 
the  childlessness  of  thinly  peopled  Fifth  Avenues, 
but  as  well  of  all  those  uptown  '  flat '  and 
'apartment'  districts  wherein  is  domiciled  the 
lost  generation  of  the  farmstead. 

The  higher  things  of  life  are  purchased  always 
at  a  cost  of  life  destroyed  or  denied.  Some 
winged  moments,  some  ephemeral  baskings  in 
the  sunshine,  man  may  attain  to,  after  long  and 
toilsome  metamorphoses;  but  soon  they  pass  in 
night.  Oppressed  with  the  sense  of  his  eflFort's 
futility,  the  pessimist  arraigns  Nature.  lyife  is 
her  idle  jest,  toy  of  her  whim.  The  creator  is 
some  monstrous  Setebos  who 

l/ooks  up,  first,  and  perceives  he  cannot  soar 
To  what  is  quiet  and  hath  happy  life  ; 
Next  looks  down  here,  and  out  of  very  spite 
Makes  this  a  bauble-world  to  ape  yon  real. 

Such  a  conception  of  Nature  is  intolerable  to 
the  life-loving  mind.  And  Nature,  since  she 
must  (or  does)  continue  the  race,  tends  to  elimi- 
nate as  often  as  evolved  the  suicidal  hyper-sensi- 
tiveness of  pessimistic  mood.  In  order  that  the 
human  species  may  exist  at  all,  man  must  be  per- 
suaded that  existence  is  worth  while.  Even  per- 
petuative  activities  depend  upon  this  in  an  order 
where  evolution  is  subject  to  psychical  as  well 
as  environmental  conditions.  The  type  of  mind, 
therefore,  which  is  convinced  that  the  cosmos 
deals   fairly  with  it   and   that  natural  utilities 


The  Worth  of  Life  67 

operate  to  ends  of  real  value,  is  the  type  which, 
through  fitness,  must  come  nearest  the  attainment 
of  those  ends.  Granted  the  continuation  of  hu- 
man intelligence,  we  must  grant  the  continued 
predominance  of  faith  in  Nature's  sincerity.  Life 
itself,  I  have  stated,  is  in  some  sort  pledge  and 
guerdon  of  that  sincerity.  Were  a  value  in  life 
not  continuously  realised,  either  as  fact  of  being 
or  vision  of  goal,  life  would  become  extinct, —  at 
least,  so  far  as  all  its  manifestations  of  higher  in- 
telligence are  concerned.  Existence  could  not 
long  be  mechanically  continued  with  a  burden  of 
utter  hopelessness.  Inertia  might  carry  it  a  little 
way,  but  could  give  no  adaptive  impulsion;  new 
environment  would  work  speedy  destruction. 

But  apart  from  this,  all  human  knowledge  is 
expression  of  our  faith  in  the  honest  intentions  of 
the  world.  The  categories  of  our  thought,  the 
laws  of  our  perception,  are  moulded  in  the  matrix 
of  the  environment  that  has  created  us.  All  our 
apprehension  of  truth,  all  our  perception  of  fact, 
all  the  necessity  which  makes  our  universe  seem 
an  ordered  universe,  is  valid  only  on  condition 
that  our  living  is  to  some  justifying  end.  Reason 
is  incompatible  with  any  theory  of  cosmic  illusion. 
If  the  pessimistic  cry  is  a  genuine  evaluation 
of  life,  the  world  must  be  chaos  and  pessimism 
itself  only  the  hoarse  inarticulation  of  abandoned 
elements. 

Thus,  both  the  fact  that  life  is  and  the  fact  that 
reason  seems  to  guide  us  to  truth  give  the  lie  to 


68      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

denial  of  life's  worth.  We  must  acknowledge, 
since  we  live,  that  Nature  cannot  have  created  us 
to  be  helpless  cat's-paws  of  her  whimsy.  If  our 
argument  recalls  Khayyam's  loquacious  Pottery, 
we  may  still  plead  that  the  Pots  had  all  of  reason 
on  their  side. 

But  if  we  believe  that  Nature  governs  with 
reason  and  that  life  runs  a  rational  course,  it  is 
evident  that  when  Nature  gives  over  or  subordi- 
nates her  motif  of  life-preservation  and  sets  fore- 
most another,  more  or  less  incompatible  with  this, 
in  that  other  is  to  be  found  the  end-for-which  of 
all  her  utilities  and  shifts.  At  the  point  where 
perpetuation  yields  to  ends  felt  to  be  better,  we 
must  look  for  the  climactic  meaning  of  life.  Such 
a  point,  it  has  been  noted,  is  encountered  in  the 
course  of  cultural  elevation.  Intensive  life  re- 
places expansive;  quality  rather  than  quantity 
becomes  paramount,  and  Malthusian  prophecies 
cease  to  menace.  There,  within  the  intension, 
must  be  found  those  elements  and  characteristics 
for  which  the  mortal  course  is  run, —  those  char- 
acteristics which  form  the  flower  and  fruitage  of 
the  evolutional  growth.  Into  the  nature  of  these 
it  is  now  pertinent  to  inquire. 

Ill — the;  prk-eminsnce;  of  beauty 

In  undertaking  to  estimate  the  values,  relative 
or  absolute,  of  the  qualities  that  constitute  human 
good,  we  may  either  pursue  a  comparative  studj^ 
of  the  course  and  contour  of  human  life  or  at- 


The  Worth  of  Life  69 

tempt  a  Socratic  inquiry  into  the  instinctive  opin- 
ions of  men.  The  advantage  of  the  comparative 
study  is  objectivity  and  seeming  evasion  of  the 
bias  of  desire.  It  is  the  method  which  has  just 
led  to  the  inference  that  the  culture  attained 
through  the  apparent  self-defeat  of  evolutional 
motive  in  some  wise  represents  the  final  flowering 
of  the  whole  growth.  Nature's  abandonment  of 
her  impulsive  expansion  of  species  for  the  sake  of 
intensive  culture  has  seemed  ipso  facto  proof  that 
in  this  culture  is  her  purpose  realised.  Yet  if  the 
proof  were  to  lie  wholly  in  such  inference,  the 
argument  would  apply  equally  to  all  life  suffering 
elimination  in  the  struggle  for  existence;  culture 
would  be  merely  one  type  of  non-adaptation  and 
of  biological  degeneracy.  As  the  case  was  put, 
however,  its  final  reliance  was  upon  a  subjective 
test.  We  must  look  for  the  climactic  meaning  of 
life,  I  have  said,  at  a  point  where  perpetuation 
yields  to  ends  felt  to  be  better.  The  subordination 
of  the  else-paramount  instinct  for  preservation 
must  be  ratified  by  desire,  must  be  volitional,  be- 
fore we  can  fairly  infer  that  a  higher  end  is  in 
view.  At  the  crucial  point  Nature  incarnates  her 
wish  in  her  offspring, — that  is  the  meaning  of  the 
new-born  desire;  she  has  brought  her  children 
beyond  the  period  where  the  rod  of  external  com- 
pulsion must  dictate  the  path,  and  by  dint  of  long 
education  has  imbued  them  with  her  own  inner 
character  and  aspiration.  Thus  the  objectivity 
of  the  comparative  method  disappears;  at  the  last 


70      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

it  rests  upon  subjective  fiat.  In  human  action 
and  in  world-action  desire  measures  attainment, 
design  measures  reality;  there  are  no  other  tests. 
Conviction,  we  say,  cannot  decree  truth  nor  hu- 
man volition  control  destinies;  and  yet  if  we  are 
to  count  ourselves  and  our  minds  as  in  any  sense 
germane  to  the  Cosmos  (as  how  else  may  we  ?), 
our  convictions  must  be  ever  growing  into  truth, 
our  volitions  ever  pointing  destined  ends.  The 
correspondence  cannot  be  exact  because  variance, 
in  some  degree,  is  necessitated  by  change  and 
growth;  but  since  growth  is  organic  and  not  cha- 
otic, the  errant  creepers  are  bound  at  last  to  circle 
back  upon  the  parent  stock.  From  any  point  of 
view  we  must  appeal  to  human  conviction  as  court 
of  last  resort,  resting  our  case  upon  faith  that  our 
persuasions  lead  to  Nature's  destined  revelations. 
But  on  such  a  question  as  the  meaning  and 
worth  of  life,  there  are  irreconcilable  latitudes  of 
opinion.  Not  only  individuals,  but  generations 
differ  with  one  another.  Hardly  could  the  most 
exhaustive  historical  analysis  give  more  than  a 
counting  of  the  changes,  from  hedonism  to  asceti- 
cism and  back  again, — the  fleshly  idols  to-day,  yes- 
terday the  mad  Crusades  and  Paradise  arched  by 
the  curve  of  flashing  scimitars.  The  comparative 
study,  historical  and  impersonal,  can  give  no  pre- 
cise conclusion;  in  its  stead  must  be  taken  the 
one  remaining  course,  the  proselyter's.  First  a 
criterion,  an  ideal  form  and  definition  embodying 
the  characteristics  which  reasonable  consideration 


The  Worth  of  Life  71 

requires  in  the  greatest  good;  afterwards  a  search 
for  the  good  best  satisfying  the  criterion.  Arbi- 
trariness in  such  procedure,  I  frankly  avow.  It 
reasons  in  a  circle;  the  conclusion  is  contained  in 
the  initial  assumption;  the  measure  is  created  for 
the  foreseen  fulfilment.  But  all  reasoning  is  in 
a  circle;  all  standards  are  framed  in  forethought; 
and  every  argument  is  addressed  ad  konmiem. 
Proof  is  only  a  form  of  persuasion.  Socrates, 
perceiving  this,  under  the  guise  of  questioner, 
convinced  men  out  of  their  own  mouths.  The 
Socratic  method  designed  no  more  than  to  lay  bare 
the  foundations  of  opinion, —  thereby  should  be 
revealed  the  veritable  form  of  the  temple  of  truth. 
Hence  the  Platonic  doctrine  that  knowledge  is 
recognition.  So  it  is;  and  proof  is  but  bringing 
men  to  see  sub  specie  czternitatis  what  they  see,  or 
are  counted  on  to  see  in  the  world  of  manifest 
verities. 

First,  the  criterion.  What  characteristics  are 
rationally  to  be  expected  in  the  good  that  makes 
life  worth  while?  Most  obvious,  I  take  it,  the 
good  must  be  an  object  of  desire, — either  such  an 
one  as  actually  is  desired  or  such  as  men  feel 
ought  to  be  desired.  We  well  know  that  in  the 
moral  world  not  all  recognised  good  is  desired, 
the  evil  way  is  likely  to  be  the  chosen;  but  the 
recognition,  not  the  choice  of  good  is  the  signifi- 
cant psychical  determinant.  The  supreme  good, 
then,  is  primarily  the  most-to-be-desired.  Further, 
it  is  that  which  is  desired  for  its  own  sake  and  not 


72      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

for  any  utility.  To  be  sure,  the  utilitarian  defines 
the  good  as  that  which  yields  human  happiness; 
but  the  metonymy  is  plain,  the  happiness  is  the 
good.  Finally  the  szimmu^n  boniim  must  be  an 
unfailing  good;  it  must  never  lose  lustre  in  its  at- 
tainment nor  generate  dull  satiety.  Many  things 
desired  to  the  uttermost  in  the  nows  and  heres  of 
life  are  dross  in  the  to-morrows.  But  the  supreme 
good  must  be  the  worth  of  life  as  a  whole  and  of 
all  life,  and  the  strength  of  the  desire  of  it  must 
be  gauged  by  permanence,  not  by  momentary  in- 
tensity. Only  such  a  worth  as  shall  outwear  the 
evanescence  of  foible-fraught  mortality  and  en- 
dure eternally  fresh  while  life  lasts  can  be  its 
greatest  worth  and  meaning.  Thus,  in  full  defi- 
nition, the  ideal  good  must  be  that  which  is  desired 
unfailingly  and  for  its  own  sake  alone. 

Prefacing  anew  that  I  count  on  the  reader's  ac- 
ceptance of  this  definition,  not  from  any  rational 
necessity  in  its  imperative,  but  on  presumption 
that  thoughtful  consideration  will  persuade  his 
assent  to  it,  let  us  turn  to  the  concrete  question. 
The  commoner  captions  under  which  are  assorted 
the  good  things  of  life  are:  material,  moral,  intel- 
lectual, emotional,  religious,  aesthetic.  Our  ques- 
tion is,  which  type  of  the  good  best  meets  the 
requirements  of  our  criterial  definition  ? 

At  once  and  unhesitatingly,  we  may  exclude 
from  candidacy  the  material,  moral,  and  intellec- 
tual types  of  good.  They  are  all  utilities,  instru- 
mental goods,  serving  an  end  beyond  their  own 


1 


The  Worth  of  Life  73 

content.  The  material  goods — health,  wealth, 
power,  and  the  like, —  are  commonly  valued  as 
agents  of  happiness,  itself  the  end  from  which 
they  derive  their  worth.  Similarly,  morality  is 
valued  as  serving  communal  welfare.  Its  whole 
significance  is  as  social  modus  vivendi ;  it  exists 
for  the  sake  of  the  ideal  life,  not  as  the  fulfilment 
of  that  life.  Unquestionably  in  moral  character 
we  have  something  in  itself  worth  while,  some- 
thing which  participates  in  the  supreme  good; 
but,  if  I  may  be  paradoxical,  it  is  not  morality 
that  makes  moral  character;  the  ethical  element 
is  lost  in  something  finer — the  proportion  and 
harmony  of  nobility,  the  beauty  of  the  altruistic 
personality  exemplified  in  love.  Love  we  recog- 
nise as  more  than  morality;  it  is  an  end  where 
morality  is  a  means.  And  it  is  in  love,  altruistic 
devotion  to  the  ideal  life  that  exists  or  is  hinted 
in  the  lives  of  fellow-men,  that  the  self-sufficiency 
of  moral  character  lies.  Morality  is  doubtless  an 
agent  in  the  framing  of  the  moral  life,  but  the 
worth  of  that  life  itself,  where  it  is  indeed  char- 
acter-wrought, is  its  passion  for  social  nobility, 
its  love.  That  is  why  love  idealises  and  always 
must  idealise.  And  wherever  there  exists  what  we 
call  a  conflict  between  love  and  morality,  where 
sentiments  of  honour  and  altruism  are  held  to  be 
higher  than  love,  it  is  not  really  so.  The  truth  in 
such  cases  is  that  the  ideal  life  is  loved  more  and  its 
frail  human  embodiment  less, —  to  the  better  pos- 
sibility the  imperfect  reality  is  willingly  sacrificed. 


74      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

I  have  heretofore  indicated  that  the  whole  body 
of  our  knowledge  derives  its  worth  from  utility, 
that  even  where  we  find  devotion  to  intellectual 
acquisition  without  ulterior  motive,  viewed  in 
larger  aspect,  the  disinterested  curiosity  is  ancil- 
lary to  the  progress  of  humanity.  Individuals 
who  find  in  knowledge  for  knowledge's  sake  an 
adequate  worth  are  only  narrowly  typical;  they 
represent  a  class  specialised  by  Nature  to  perform 
a  necessary  task,  but  the  trend  of  human  nature 
is  not  toward  such  a  development.  Yet  this  is 
only  half  truth.  In  certain  guise  knowledge 
does  possess  the  attribute  of  sufiiciency,  and  for 
all  mankind.  lyike  moral  character  it  may  be 
proportionate,  harmonious,  and  comely,  its  pos- 
session a  grace  befitting  the  dignity  of  man;  it 
may  be  essential  to  the  full  rounding  out  of  per- 
sonalit3^  But  we  must  distinguish.  Knowledge 
is  of  more  than  one  sort :  on  the  one  hand  we 
have  'dead  abstraction';  on  the  other  'living 
knowledge.'  The  dead  abstraction  is  the  utile 
knowledge,  for  it  is  b}^  means  of  abstraction  that 
we  reason,  construct,  and  predict.  But  the  living 
knowledge,  intuition,  insight,  is  the  knowledge 
that  endows  the  world  with  light  and  sound  and 
colour,  with  form  and  magnitude,  with  history 
and  possibility.  It  is  the  knowledge  which  is  the 
material  and  dress  of  beautj^  and  in  every  worth 
reckoned  for  the  complete  human  life  it  must  be 
a  vital  factor.  Not  that  in  itself  it  is  ultimate 
good.     Before  it  can  become  that  it  must  be  trans- 


The  Worth  of  Life  75 

formed  and  vivified,  in  truth  made  living  by  in- 
corporation into  the  substance  of  the  soul;  it  must 
be  moulded  by  Form,  Form  in  the  Aristotelian 
sense  and  the  same  as  the  intellectual  element  of 
will;  it  must  be  idealised  as  it  is  idealised  in  our 
conception  of  Truth,  into  which  we  grow  and 
which  we  ever  have  faith  must  be  revealed  to  us 
as  the  transfigured  splendour.  But  for  know- 
ledge per  se,  mere  intellect, —  that  can  never  be  of 
supreme  worth.  To  perceive  this,  we  have  but 
to  note  how  in  literature  as  in  life  the  acme  of  the 
horrible  and  monstrous  is  to  be  found  in  what  we 
are  accustomed  to  call  '  brute  mechanism ' — 
which  is  to  say,  brute  calculation. 

Three  types  of  good,  emotional,  religious,  and 
sesthetic,  remain  to  be  considered.  At  first  sight, 
it  may  appear  that  the  three  are  one,  since  re- 
ligious and  sesthetical  experiences  are  commonly 
conceived  to  be  kinds  of  emotion,  but  in  each  of 
these  there  is  an  objective,  non-egoistic  element 
not  to  be  found  in  pure  emotion.  Moreover,  hap- 
piness, the  elect  emotional  good,  while  it  may 
enter  into  both  religion  and  sesthetical  apprecia- 
tion, is  not  by  any  means  limited  to  these  types 
of  experience  :  its  characteristic  significance  must 
be  found  elsewhere.  Doubtless  few  tasks  are 
easier  than  to  describe  conditions  which  make  for 
happiness;  few  are  more  difiicult  than  to  define 
what  it  is  in  itself.  Reverting  to  the  objective 
method,  we  may  estimate  the  r61e  of  emotion  in 
the  history  of  life-development.     The  function  of 


76      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

painful  emotions  we  perceive  to  be  fundamentally 
utilitarian;  they  prod  to  activity,  hence  to  growth 
and  life-expansion;  hunger  leads  to  the  acquisi- 
tion and  assimilation  of  food,  fear  goads  to  flight 
from  dangerous  proximities.  But  hardly  less 
utilitarian  is  pleasure.  Pleasure  appears  as  the 
attendant  of  preservative  conditions, —  in  connec- 
tion with  the  gratification  of  healthy  appetite,  or, 
in  the  higher  form  of  happiness,  as  a  concomitant 
of  general  comfort  and  well-being, —  and  by  en- 
couraging conserving  activities,  it  aids  perpetua- 
tion. It  might  therefore  seem  just  to  deny 
happiness  any  right  of  supremacy  among  goods  ■ 
on  the  ground  that  it  is  utilitarian.  But  such  a 
course  would  be  illogical.  Objective  definition  is 
arbitrary  and  artificial,  and  in  this  case  at  least, 
desire  is  the  ultimate  test.  No  matter  how  hap- 
piness may  have  been  generated,  what  it  is  and 
seems  is  our  sole  concern. 

But  there  are  other  grounds  for  rejecting  he- 
donism. First,  the  ephemeral  nature  of  all  self- 
regarding  emotion.  Such  emotion  exists  only  in 
and  for  the  present;  it  has  no  objective  orienta- 
tion, from  which  alone  it  could  derive  permanent 
worth;  it  is  epi-phenomenon  of  life.  This  eva- 
nescence is  plainly  in  contradiction  with  our  cri- 
terion. Furthermore,  as  all  men  know,  happiness 
cannot  be  sought  in  its  own  right.  It  comes  as 
attendant  upon  other  pursuits,  as  a  sort  of  emo- 
tional penumbra  about  other  interests.  It  may 
be  welcome  by-play,  but  in  strict  sense  it  cannot 


The  Worth  of  Life  "n 

be  an  object  of  desire.  Search  for  it  is  restless 
and  unsatisfactory,  the  searcher  being  ever  forced 
to  centre  his  desire  upon  agencies  in  the  very  at- 
tainment defeating  the  longed-for  fruition.  This 
truism  of  common  experience  is  due  to  the  essen- 
tial instability  of  a  state  without  objective  an- 
chorage; and  it  unfits  happiness  for  the  supreme 
estate  of  the  ideal  good,  since  our  criterion  ex- 
pressly demands  that  that  good  be,  in  itself,  the 
object  of  desire. 

But  the  strength  of  the  case  against  happiness 
lies  in  a  third  objection.  It  is  not  commonly 
felt  to  be  the  greatest  good.  It  is  repeatedly  held 
to  be  subordinate  to  moral  ends, —  half  our  moral 
laws  are  designed  to  restrain  pleasure-seeking  in- 
stincts. The  utilitarian  will  object  that  racial 
happiness  is  the  real  good  sought  and  that  mor- 
ality is  wholly  a  means  to  that  end, — but  this  as- 
sumes too  much.  Take  such  subtler  moral  senti- 
ments as  those  of  honour,  for  example.  It  would 
be  diflBcult  for  the  most  imaginative  utilitarian  to 
justify  noblesse  oblige  hedonistically.  Certain 
types  of  mind  we  revere  as  noble,  and  count  them 
beyond  any  price  of  joyance. 

O,  good  Horatio,  what  a  wounded  name, 

Things  standing  thus  unknown,    shall    live    behind 

me  ! 
If  thou  didst  ever  hold  me  in  thy  heart, 
Absent  thee  from  felicity  awhile. 
And  in  this  harsh  world  draw  thy  breath  in  pain, 
To  tell  my  story. 


78      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

"Absent  thee  from  felicity  awhile"!  For  the 
joy- worshipper  here  is  a  double  rebuke  and  a 
silencing.  The  measure  of  life  is  not  happiness. 
There  is  something  better,  something  whose  once- 
seen  image  Omar  could  not  banish  with  the  cup 
nor  ever  forget  for  his  Persian  Rose.  The  lives 
of  the  prophets  and  saviours  of  mankind  we  do 
not  reckon  at  a  worth  of  joys.  If  you  object 
moral  value,  happiness-utility,  how  answer  for 
the  life  of  Keats  ?  Is  it  for  moral  achievement  or 
for  its  happiness  that  his  life  was  worth  the  cost  ? 
If  life  were  lived  only  for  the  sake  of  the  hap- 
piness it  yields,  it  appears  certain  that  by  most 
men  it  would  be  accounted  a  failure;  in  some 
other  asset,  some  other  attainment  must  be 
sought  its  true  and  sufl&cient  rationale.  Mere 
emotional  efflorescence  can  never  be  anything  less 
than  futile;  there  is  need  of  stable  anchorage  in 
the  objective  organism  of  reality  before  a  basis  of 
substantial  value  can  be  obtained.  In  religious 
values  such  objective  anchorage  is  proffered: 
worth  that  endures  is  won  for  the  finite  human 
life  through  its  relation  to  the  life  of  the  infinite 
and  divine.  Not  in  the  promise  of  Paradise;  for 
Paradisal  felicit}^  is  only  a  deferred  human  bliss, 
— sublimated,  transfigured,  apotheosised,  but  not 
to  be  distinguished  in  kind  from  the  partial  reali- 
sations of  it  in  chrysalid  mortality.  The  value 
which  religion  is  to  offer,  if  it  be  a  real  value, 
must  lie  in  the  life  here  given  us;  it  must  be  a 
terrestrially  attainable  worth;  even  religious  faith 


The  Worth  of  Life  79 

itself,  if  that  is  supreme,  must  be  valued  for  what 
it  now  is,  uot  for  what  it  promises. 

Now  there  are  two  conceptions  of  religious 
values  here  to  be  considered.  First,  religion  may 
yield  a  type  of  consciousness  such  as  the  mystics 
have,  in  itself  justification  for  all  being.  The 
mystical  consciousness  has  seemed  and  may  in- 
deed be  the  supreme  worth  of  life  and  the  end  and 
design  of  evolution.  This  is  possible  just  because 
we  have  the  testimony  of  certain  human  beings 
that  with  them  it  was  so.  But  to  the  mass  of 
mankind  such  consciousness  is  denied,  nor  is  it 
apparent  that  the  tendency  of  the  life-movement 
is  for  its  increase.  Conceding,  therefore,  that  for 
some  the  mystical  value  may  be  the  ultimate 
measure,  we  reserve  that  for  us  and  for  the  many 
it  is  not  so.  We  pass  it  with  a  question  wholly 
because  it  is  so  foreign  to  us.  Nearer  at  hand  is 
that  conception  of  religion  which  presents  it  as 
the  expression  of  man's  relation  to  the  hidden 
world  —  a  kind  of  cosmic  morality.  This  view 
may  be  analysed  on  analogy  to  human  morality. 
In  so  far  as  religion  is  an  aid  to  the  ordering  of 
life,  modus  vivendi  with  the  supernatural  or  super- 
human, it  is  utilitarian  and  exists  for  an  end  be- 
yond itself;  but  in  so  far  as  the  religious  attitude, 
whether  love  or  fear  or  reverence,  becomes  a  con- 
stant factor  in  the  spiritual  nature,  it  reacts  to 
produce  the  religious  character.  In  the  case  of 
moral  character,  I  asserted  that  the  constant 
factor  is  love  for  the  ideal  human  life;  in  the  case 


8o      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

of  religious  character,  it  is  analogously  love  or 
reverence  for  the  divine  life.  That  the  divinity- 
must  be  humanly  apprehended,  in  a  way  hu- 
manly created,  only  means  that  the  object  of 
adoration  must  exist  and  be  valued  within  the 
bounds  of  human  experience  in  the  same  way 
that  the  ideal  life  exists  and  is  valued  there ;  and 
just  as  moral  nobility  only  half  defines  the  human 
ideal,  so  religious  adoration  only  half  defines 
divinity. 

It  appears,  then,  that  in  order  to  get  at  the 
full  meaning  of  the  supreme  good,  there  is  neces- 
sary some  further  conception, —  one  which  shall 
supplement  all  insufficiencies  and  gather  into 
itself  what  elements  of  final  adequacy  have  been 
attained.  In  the  final  value  of  the  series  offered, 
the  aesthetical,  we  have  such  a  conception.  Ap- 
prehension of  beauty  is  an  experience  meeting  the 
conditions  of  our  criterion  :  beauty  is  desired  for 
its  own  sake  and  exists  for  its  own  sake;  its 
potencj'^  is  eternal, —  there  is  never  a  weariness  or 
a  surfeit.  Further,  beauty  requires  for  its  em- 
bodiments, material  and  ideal,  all  the  substance 
of  that  living  knowledge,  that  intuition  and  in- 
sight, which  for  its  proportion,  harmony  and 
vitality  heretofore  seemed  an  essential  of  the 
highest  life;  and  beauty  demands  for  its  genera- 
tion an  emotional  impulsion  which  shall  not  be 
egoistic  as  is  happiness,  but  sacrificing  as  is  love, 
and  so  winning  at  the  one  time  permanence  in  free- 
dom from  self-regard,  and  realisation  in  the  ideal 


The  Worth  of  Life  8i 

incarnation.  But  knowledge,  however  vital,  and 
love,  however  aspiring,  do  not  alone  make  beauty : 
there  is  necessary  yet  a  quality  of  personality, 
inborn  will  of  Nature,  which  guiding  the  love, 
moulds  the  knowledge  into  all  beauties,  whether 
the  plastic  forms  of  perceptual  loveliness  or  the 
nobility  of  moral  character  or  the  beatitude  of 
divinity.  The  final  worth  of  life  must  be  found 
in  the  life's  work;  instinctively  we  feel  that  only 
our  activities  warrant  our  existence.  Nor  can  the 
activities  find  their  meaning  in  reasonless  repeti- 
tions of  experiences,  or  in  idle  effervescences  of 
spirit;  rather  it  must  lie  in  the  fact  that  they 
create  an  habitation,  more  or  less  permanent,  for 
the  deep-lying  character,  the  persistent  personali- 
ties of  men.  In  beauty  and  in  art,  which  is  the 
typical  human  creation  of  beauty,  is  such  end 
realised. 

6 


CHAPTKR  IV 

THE  UNIVERSAIv  AND  THE  INDIVIDUAL 
I — INDIVIDUAl,   AND   COMMUNAI,   IDBAI^ 

BKFORK  proceeding  with  analysis  of  the  ex- 
perience of  beauty,  it  is  necessary  to  digress 
and  to  conclude  a  question  certain  to  govern  any 
final  decision.  Is  the  meaning  of  life  communal 
or  individual?  Is  life's  worth  a  racial  or  a  per- 
sonal concern  ?  The  query  is  the  more  pertinent 
in  that  it  leads  so  directly  to  that  other,  crucial  in 
criticism,  concerning  the  nature  of  the  individual 
and  universal  in  art. 

If  the  question  were  whether  or  no  the  supreme 
good  is  attained  in  the  life  of  the  average  in- 
dividual, our  answer  would  be  negative.  Very 
many  lives,  in  their  mortal  course  at  least,  miss 
the  good  altogether;  and  a  majority,  even  under 
the  highest  culture,  win  only  its  partial  realisa- 
tion. Nature  often  bungles  her  workmanship; 
half  our  clay  is  moulded  awry.  But  this  too  in- 
controvertible fact  is  not  really  the  centre  of  our 
concern.  The  vital  issue  is  over  the  nature  of  the 
good  in  the  instance  of  its  realisation:  is  it  then 
and  there  expression  of  individual  life  or  of  the 
82 


Universal  and  Individual       83 

life  of  community,  race,  or  order  of  beiug?  Do 
we  live  for  society  or  is  society  only  the  instru- 
mental milieic  in  which  are  developed  ideal 
individualities  ? 

It  cannot  be  doubted  that  the  ephemeralness  of 
the  individual  life  leads  to  depreciation  of  indi- 
vidual values.  That  which  passes  away  has  ever 
seemed  of  little  consequence  in  comparison  with 
eternal  verities,  and  of  all  passing  things  the 
phases  and  afiections  of  the  individual  mind  seem 
most  fleetingly  evanescent;  earthly  immortalities 
have  ever  been  sought  in  the  objective  impress  of 
power, —  in  the  granite  of  pyramids,  in  the  deep- 
seared  memories  of  holocaustic  conquests,  in  the 
founding  of  orders  and  dynasties,  in  the  architec- 
ture of  states.  The  individual,  whether  of  high 
rank  or  low,  lives  and  achieves  seemingly  for  the 
sake  of  the  commune;  he  is  a  unit  in  its  aggre- 
gate, a  component  in  its  mechanism.  From  his 
function  in  it  he  derives  all  his  objective  and  last- 
ing significance;  indeed,  individuality  itself  is 
created  by  societ}^, —  man  is  named  in  distinction 
to  social  fellows,  his  labour  supplements  theirs,  his 
interests  grow  out  of  theirs,  all  his  life  is  made 
possible  only  by  their  co-operation.  Even  in  his 
rebellions  he  defers  to  the  community,  to  poster- 
ity; and  if  he  toils  solitary  and  unknown  his  toil 
is  tolerable  only  because  he  feels  that  its  achieve- 
ments will  eventually  profit  mankind;  a  hopeless 
Robinson  Crusoe  or  a  *  last  man '  is  humanly 
impossible. 


84      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

Thus,  ephemeraltiess  and  dependence  both  sub- 
ordinate the  individual  life  to  that  of  the  social 
organism.  In  addition,  there  is  evolved  through 
the  gregarious  instinct  a  natural  and  profound  def- 
erence to  the  augustness  and  objective  power  of 
governing  sovereignties.  Vox  populi^  vox  dei :  in 
democracies  too  often  the  intellectually  strong 
falter  in  conviction  at  the  behest  of  shallow- 
throated  vociferations  of  the  led  multitude;  and 
there  are  attitudes  of  reverence  toward  flag,  pre- 
cedent, ancient  institutions — all  palpably  fetich- 
istic  of  the  spirit  of  the  people ;  and  there  are 
glorifications  of  race  in  dynastic  appeal  and  pride 
of  name  ;  and  there  are  homing  instincts  —  local 
and  civic  patriotisms  and  idealistic  satisfactions 
in  the  stability  of  that  which  is  building  for  the 
future.  In  all  these  bents  of  the  mind  we  per- 
ceive the  strength  and  sufficiency  of  the  communal 
ideal.  Contemplation  of  populous  and  prosper- 
ous states,  of  races  aggrandising  and  dominating, 
blinds  to  the  pathos  of  lesser  destinies  defeated 
and  obliterates  sympathy  for  the  under-trampled 
lives.  There  is  a  spectacular  quality  in  the  Tri- 
umph—  not  Caesar's  but  Rome's — ■  which  trans- 
forms a  people  into  a  populace  and  converts  the 
human  tragedy  of  chained  barbarian  princes  into 
the  painted  tragedy  of  the  theatre  :  the  State  be- 
comes Moloch  hungering  for  immolations.  Yet 
not  the  mob  alone, —  reason  itself,  in  strongly 
ethical  mood,  finds  the  communal  ideal  adequate 
and  communal  ends  sufficient  cause  for  the  sacri- 


Universal  and  Individual        85 

fice  of  individual  desires.  So  we  have  the  devo- 
tion of  the  Gracchi  and  of  the  mother  of  the 
Gracchi;  so,  too,  the  martyrdom  of  Socrates. 

There  can  be  no  question  but  that  the  com- 
munal ideal  is  potent,  but  it  does  not  and  cannot 
furnish  the  sufl&cient  reason  of  life.  To  perceive 
this  we  have  only  to  analyse  individuality  in  its 
communal  relations.  And  first,  let  us  do  away 
with  an  offensive  error.  Individualism  is  not 
hero-worship.  Hero-worship,  whether  springing, 
as  with  Carlyle,  from  a  pessimistic  conception  of 
Nature  as  the  arch-bungler,  or,  as  with  Nietzsche, 
from  a  primitive  servility,  always  conceives  the 
mass  of  humanity  as  doomed  to  the  caryatidal 
labour  of  supporting  genius  throned;  but  the 
genius  itself  (final  term  in  the  series)  becomes  an 
autocrat  enslaved  by  his  own  autocracy,  as  punily 
dependent  and  as  hopelessly  enchained  as  the 
weakest  in  the  minioned  mass.  Brute  tyranny  is 
the  outcome,  wholly  repugnant  to  modern  intui- 
tion and  wholly  unindividual.  Individualism  is 
truly  meaningful  just  in  so  far  as  it  applies  to  the 
many,  not  the  few;  the  ideal  individual  is  not  an 
heroic  soul  chosen  apart,  but  that  better  human 
nature  which  is  the  promise  of  all  human  nature. 

Doubtless  I  seem  to  mire  in  contradiction,  yet 
the  reasoning  is  simple.  We  have  first  to  separate 
again  perpetuative  activities  from  those  that  lead 
to  higher  ends;  the  commune  is  primarily  means 
and  instrument  for  preserving  and  expanding  life; 
if  certain  of  the  lives  it  enables  are  necessarily 


86      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

sacrificed  to  the  general  interest,  it  is  only  for  the 
sake  of  other  lives,  other  individuals,  whose  crea- 
tion is  the  heart  of  this  interest.  The  demos  ex- 
ists for  its  members, — so  evolution  reveals  :  from 
the  beginning  the  tendency  to  vary,  to  differenti- 
ate and  make  complex,  has  been  the  significant 
tendency;  it  is  the  creative  force,  just  as  its  oppo- 
site, reversion  to  type,  is  the  conserving  force,  and 
its  luxuriant  multiplications  of  genera,  species, 
and  varieties  have  given  us  that  heterogeneity  in 
the  world  which  makes  individuality  possible. 

The  trend  of  evolution,  then,  is  toward  the  in- 
crease and  enrichment  of  Types, —  in  recent 
periods  perhaps  more  in  the  mental  than  in  the 
physical  world.  And  the  Type  bodies  forth  the 
fit  and  the  sane,  the  norm,  and  this  norm  repre- 
sents the  ideal  individual — never  an  eccentric.  If 
I  seem  to  be  coming  back  to  a  communal  ideal, 
this  is  really  not  so;  the  communal  ideal  may  be 
a  hero  (autocrat),  or  a  mob  consciousness  (again 
autocrat),  but  in  any  case  it  is  important  only  in 
relation  to  the  mass  as  a  mass.  This  is  never  true 
of  the  Type,  which  derives  its  whole  significance 
from  its  own  nature  and  so  is  the  only  real  indi- 
vidual. But  I  am  misleading  :  first,  with  the 
notion  that  individuality  involves  the  composite 
blur,  the  monotonous  sameness  of  one  thing  typi- 
fying many;  second,  by  disregarding  the  social 
character  of  individuality.  As  to  the  first  of  these 
points,  we  need  but  note  that  the  Type  is  a  vital 
thing,  hence  a  changing,  growing,  manifold  thing; 


Universal  and  Individual        87 

it  is  never  quite  the  same  with  itself;  and  in  the 
complex  development  which  the  human  race  has 
attained  variatioti  is  typical ;  its  variable  term  is 
essential  to  the  norm.  In  regard  to  the  second 
point,  the  individual  can  only  be  defined  as  a 
social  individual;  the  adjective  is  inalienable. 
Social  function  and  social  consciousness  neces- 
sarily find  place  in  the  normal  character  of  man, 
and  his  sociability  is  an  important  feature  of  his 
personality, —  as  ennobled  in  love,  the  supremely 
important  feature. 

Thus  the  social  organism  is  essential  to  indi- 
viduality on  both  scores, —  that  the  typical  varia- 
tion may  exist,  and  that  the  social  character  may 
find  exercise.  But  the  social  organism  does  not 
dominate  the  individual,  though  his  individuality 
grows  out  of  it,  for  he  is  the  sole  measure  of  its 
significance.  It  is  the  variable  in  the  Type  which 
makes  society  an  organism  rather  than  an  aggre- 
gate, and  so  seems  to  render  a  communal  ideal 
plausible;  but  the  Type  itself  exists  only  as  the 
typical  individual,  and  the  organism  as,  in  a 
way,  by-play  of  this  individuality. 

We  may  say,  then,  that  Nature  herself  requires 
the  individualistic  interpretation  of  life,  first,  be- 
cause of  the  virility  of  her  evolution  of  varying 
and  multiplex  personalities,  second,  because  of 
the  paramount,  the  architectonic  role  played  by 
the  Type  in  her  vital  scheme.  In  contrast,  com- 
munal interpretation  is  doubly  defeated, — first, 
by  the   primarily   instrumental  character  of  the 


88      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

commune,  and,  second,  by  the  resolution  of  its  sig- 
nificance as  organism  into  individualistic  relation 
—  a  relation  in  which  individual  sentience  is 
sole  judge  of  the  worth,  and  so  appropriates  the 
significance. 

But  if  the  worth  of  life  is  thus  individual  and 
personal,  still  remains  unanswered  the  first  objec- 
tion raised  against  such  a  view — the  ephemeral- 
ness  of  individual  existences.  It  might  be  pointed 
out  that  this  objection  applies  with  almost  equal 
force  to  the  communal  interpretation;  a  thousand 
years  are  as  a  day  to  God;  to  the  cosmical  view 
of  things,  coming  to  be  our  habitual  view,  the 
lives  of  nations  and  races,  aye,  of  planets  and 
solar  systems,  are  as  truly  evanescent  as  a  mere 
mortal's  days;  abiding  reality  is  no  more  to  be 
found  in  the  one  than  in  the  other,  for  each  has  a 
predictable  course  to  run,  each  has  a  history  de- 
marked  by  first  term  and  last.  The  worth  which 
shall  have  sufficing  permanency  cannot  be  at- 
tained under  the  limitations  of  historical  concep- 
tion; it  must  be  sought  sub  specie  ceternitatis. 
Now,  paradoxical  as  it  may  seem,  this  is  just 
what  is  done  by  the  individualistic  valuation  of 
life, — in  exalting  the  ephemeral  the  permanent  is 
won.  The  reason  lies  in  the  nature  of  the  value  : 
it  is,  as  we  have  seen,  a  norm  and  type,  therefore, 
a  universal — not  the  generic  universal,  significant 
by  reason  of  its  included  particulars,  but  an  ideal 
personality,  a  Platonic  universal.  The  actual  in- 
dividual, eccentric  child  of  time  and,  circumstance. 


Universal  and  Individual         89 

can  never  truly  incarnate  the  ideal  self ;  for  this 
self  is  something  transcendental,  magnetic,  ever 
drawing  the  life  into  the  patterned  way,  yet  ever 
beyond  present  attainment.  At  the  same  time, 
elusive  though  it  be,  the  ideal  is  the  norm  and 
meaning  of  man's  existence;  it  is  the  one  thing 
for  which  he  lives,  the  one  thing  which  makes 
his  life  worth  while,  the  one  thing  in  all  the  world 
most  intimatel}'  his;  not  any  crudities  in  his  crea- 
tion can  entirely  rob  him  of  it,  nor  any  cruelties 
of  Nature  obliterate  the  vision. 

Platonism  ?  Yes,  and  some  incongruities, — 
perhaps,  truths,  as  well.  lyCt  us  repeat  them  to- 
gether :  The  final  worth  of  life  is  for  the  indi- 
vidual, but  its  content  is  partly  social  because 
sociability  is  a  feature  of  individuality.  Again, 
the  worth  is  both  particular  and  universal;  it  is  a 
universal  particular,  for  it  is  a  pattern  and  type, 
never  self-same,  but  manifold  as  individual  lives 
are  many.  Furthermore,  it  is  at  once  ephemeral 
and  eternal :  ephemeral  because  it  patterns  some- 
what vital  and  growing,  a  life  ever  passing  away 
and  ever  renewing;  eternal  because  idealisation 
lifts  it  out  of  the  sphere  of  eccentricity  and  capri- 
cious circumstance.  I^astly,  the  worth  is  the  most 
inalienable  possession  of  the  individual  yet  most 
hopelessly  transcends  his  possession — because  it  is 
the  scheme  and  plot  of  his  creation  and  lies  at  the 
heart  of  the  paradox  of  living. 


90       Poetry  and  the  Individual 

II — unive;rsai,ity  in  art 

In  my  .discussion  of  the  nature  of  the  worth  of 
hfe,  I  came  to  the  conclusion  that  this  worth  is  to 
be  found  in  experiences  of  beauty.  As  for  what 
beauty  itself  is,  I  did  no  more  than  venture  a  hint 
of  its  catholicity  with  some  promise  of  later  eluci- 
dations. The  place  for  these  is  not  yet,  but  here 
we  may  recall  that  in  the  sphere  of  objective  ac- 
tivities, artistic  creation  is  the  one  human  means 
for  attainment  of  beauty.  If  certain  spiritual  ac- 
tivities— mouldings  of  moral  and  religious  char- 
acter —  belong  to  a  sphere  finer  than  that  of  art, 
still  in  art  alone  may  we  objectify  ideals  of  beaut}', 
and  its  expressions  form  our  sole  communion  in 
matters  of  the  spirit.  The  ancients  wrought  their 
divinities  in  marble,  Jesus  spoke  in  parables,  and 
so  must  art  always  be  the  embodying  eloquence 
of  beauty. 

It  is  timely,  then,  to  pursue  my  digression  yet 
a  little  further,  and  if  possible  ascertain  on  the 
basis  of  the  analysis  just  offered  something  of  the 
true  implications  of  individuality  and  universality 
in  art.  The  issue  is  sharply  present  in  modern 
interest:  has  the  artist  sole  right  to  expression  of 
his  individuality,  is  it  law  unto  itself?  or  is  he 
bound  by  universal  principles,  either  limitations 
of  social  convention  and  appeal  or  objective  char- 
acteristics in  the  nature  of  the  beautiful  itself, 
which  afford  a  priori  criteria  to  which  his  art 
should  conform  ? 


Universal  and  Individual         91 

In  undertaking  some  phases  of  the  issue  let  us 
preface  that  the  question  of  origins  is  not  of  prime 
interest,  A  thing  may  be  described  in  two  ways  : 
it  may  be  defined  for  what  it  is,  measured  in  terms 
of  its  function  or  of  other  things,  or  it  may  be  de- 
scribed with  reference  to  its  causes  and  genesis. 
Plainly  our  first  concern  is  with  what  the  thing  is 
and  what  its  function,  which  may  be  altogether 
different  from  what  it  has  been  or  has  grown  out 
of,  its  causes,  as  we  say.  Evolution  is  a  doctrine 
of  the  diversification  of  things,  and  we  well  know 
how  often  in  the  course  of  development  natural 
endowments  are  lost,  perverted,  or  trained  to  new 
utility  (as,  for  example,  when  the  mandibles  of 
erstwhile  peaceful  ants  are  converted  by  habitual 
warfare  to  a  helplessly  bellicose  function).  So 
with  art :  however  communal  may  or  may  not 
have  been  its  origin,  if  it  is  now  become  individual 
— in  line  with  the  individualising  tendency  of 
evolution  in  general — that  is  our  immediate  con- 
cern and  must  dictate  our  definition.  I  would 
not  minimise  the  real  interest  which  criticism 
must  necessarily  feel  in  the  matter  of  origins. 
An  accurate  natural  history  of  art  cannot  fail  of 
being  illuminating.  Indeed,  when  we  attempt  to 
predict  what  art  is  to  become,  this  history  is  of 
the  highest  importance  ;  in  order  to  understand 
the  plot  of  the  development,  we  must  possess  an 
extensive  outline  of  the  stages  already  passed,  on 
the  basis  of  which  alone  may  we  hope  to  interpret 
tendencies  and  orient  directions.     If  there  are  to 


92       Poetry  and  the  Individual 

be  cyclical  repetitions,  we  want  to  know  it  ;  if  on 
the  other  hand  there  is  a  major,  ever- widening 
trend  in  this  as  in  all  other  evolutions,  we  are 
wholly  dependent  on  history  to  reveal  whatever 
we  may  gather  of  its  general  contour. 

Nevertheless,  the  matter  of  definition  is  fore- 
most. Hence,  in  bringing  into  review  the  type 
of  criticism  which  conceives  art  as  social  function 
or  expression,  we  may  fairly  dismiss,  as  descrip- 
tive history,  such  innovations  as  that  of  M.  Taine, 
together  with  later  studies  of  the  beginnings  of 
aesthetic  expression.  But  with  a  work  of  a  dif- 
ferent type — M.  Guyau's  L"  Art  au  point  de  vue 
sociologique — we  have  a  near  interest.  M.  Guyau's 
keen  little  volume  approaches  criticism  from  the 
side  of  psychological  analysis,  and  the  author  dis- 
covers an  uncompromisingly  social  character  in 
art  on  the  basis  of  his  analysis  of  individuality. 
The  individual  is  for  him  already  a  society,  an 
epitome  of  that  greater  society  in  which  it  moves 
and  has  its  being;  the  self  is  a  peopled  self,  and 
its  fundamental  nature  is  expansive  and  procre- 
ative.     He  writes  '  : 

The  individual  consciousness  is  already  social,  and  all 
that  re-echoes  in  our  entire  organism,  in  our  entire  con- 
sciousness, assumes  a  social  aspect.  Long  ago  the  Greek 
philosophers  found  the  beautiful  in  harmony,  or  at  least 
esteemed  harmony  one  of  the  most  essential  character- 
istics of  beauty  ;  this  harmony,  too  abstractly  and  too 
mathematically  conceived  by  the  ancients,  reduces,  for 

1  UArt  au  point  de  vue  sociologique  (1899),  p.  8, 


Universal  and  Individual        93 

modern  psychology,  to  an  organic  solidarite,  to  a  con- 
spiration of  living  cells,  to  a  sort  of  social  and  collective 
consciousness  in  the  breast  of  the  individual.  We  say, 
/,  and  we  could  as  well  say  we.  The  agreeable  becomes 
beautiful  to  the  measure  in  which  it  includes  more  of  or- 
ganic harmony  {solidarite)  and  of  sociability  between  all 
the  parts  of  our  being  and  all  the  elements  of  our  con- 
sciousness, to  the  measure  in  which  it  is  more  attribu- 
table to  this  we  which  is  in  the  /. 

From  this  conception  of  individuality  springs  M. 
Guyau's  idea  of  artistic  genius  as  "  a  form,  ex- 
traordinarily intense,  of  sympathy  and  sociability, 
which  can  satisfy  itself  only  in  creating  a  new 
world,  a  world  of  living  beings  '"  ;  genius  is  thus 
"  a  power  of  loving  which,  like  all  love,  tends  en- 
ergetically to  fecundity  and  the  creation  of  life. ' '  '^ 
In  similar  wise,  art  is  communal  expansion, 
not  merely  a  means  of  social  expression  but  an 
expression  of  sociability. 

The  view  is  interestingly  Gallic  in  its  tendency 
to  make  social  cravings  pervasive,  and  it  has 
sufficient  truth  to  appeal  tellingly.  Yet  behind 
the  speciousness  of  the  exposition,  one  feels  there 
is  a  fault.  The  we  is  yet  an  //  indeed,  it  is  the 
only  possible  /,  its  sociality  being  but  the  expres- 
sion of  the  organic  complexity  of  its  unity.  Indi- 
vidualism is  not  to  be  eliminated  by  legerdemain 
with  the  definition  of  individual.  Without  the 
hegemony  of  the  self,  instincts  and  passions  can 
never  be  true  citizens  of  the  soul. 

*  Op.  cii.,  p.  27.  ^Ibid.,  p.  29. 


94       Poetry  and  the  Individual 

Moreover,  sociability,  as  a  mere  quale,  can  af- 
ford no  comprehensive  canon  of  criticism.  There 
can  be  no  true  ethical  relation  in  an  assemblage, 
however  organic,  whose  units  are  not  themselves 
individuals  ;  and  without  ethical  relation,  without 
at  least  potential  freedom,  neither  the  social  nor 
the  individual  conception  is  meaningful ;  bondage 
to  mechanical  concert  is  all  that  is  possible.  M. 
Guyau's  analysis  really  goes  very  far  toward  the 
heart  of  the  problem  ;  he  lays  his  finger  upon  the 
quickening  nerve  of  motive  ;  but  for  all  his  psycho- 
logical keenness,  he  fails  of  the  real  foundation  of 
the  instinct  with  which  he  is  concerned.  His  de- 
fect is  of  philosophy.  There  is  needed  an  organon 
of  significances  within  the  social  whole  ;  in  other 
words,  a  test  of  the  meaning  of  sociability  for  the 
individuals  of  the  society.  Psychology  cannot 
profitably  proceed  by  objectifying  indefinitely  the 
elements  of  personality;  there  must  be  some  ulti- 
mate form  or  pattern  of  the  self  capable  of  serving 
as  the  centre  of  reference  with  respect  to  which 
the  objective  structure  is  evalued. 

That  ultimate  pattern  is  a  matter  for  later  in- 
quiry; let  us  turn,  then,  for  the  present,  from  the 
psychological  aspect,  and  demand  of  the  ethical, 
if  perchance  it  may  ofifer  a  prior  motive.  The 
question  is  here  not  one  of  didacticism,  nor  yet 
of  the  relation  of  art  and  morals,  but  rather  of  the 
subordination  of  individual  to  public  taste.  It 
comes  most  sharply  to  the  fore  in  a  recent  and 
growing  advocacy  of  certain  unifications  of  plastic 


Universal  and  Individual         95 

arts,  especially  the  conversion  of  painting  and 
sculpture  to  purely  decorative  office,  as  ancillary 
to  architecture.  There  is  much  that  appeals  to 
the  imagination  both  in  the  achievement  and 
promise  of  this  movement ;  and  it  fairly  challenges 
individualism  (little  as  its  protagonists  may  hold 
such  consequence  in  view). 

The  lesson  of  the  near  future  [writes  an  American 
artist,  Mr.  Will  H*.  Low ']  will  be  that  only  the  chosen 
few  can  hope  to  win  recognition  or  a  livelihood  by  paint- 
ing pictures.  It  is  an  assumption  of  great  power  to 
boldly  challenge  the  world  by  the  production  of  an  object 
which  exists  without  relation  to  aught  save  itself;  to  say, 
in  a  word,  here  is  a  beautiful  object  brought  into  the 
world  by  my  inspiration,  so  precious  and  beautiful  that 
though  it  serves  no  other  purpose  than  to  excite  emotion 
in  the  beholder,  yet  it  has  a  right  to  exist,  and  I,  its  pro- 
ducer, must  be  enabled  to  exist.  The  poet  has  this  pre- 
tension, and  there  have  been  poets  who  have  earned 
their  living  by  writing  poetry.     But  how  few ! 

The  economic  feature  is  here  of  no  concern 
(though  it  might  be  noted  that  the  painter  has 
really  a  fairer  opportunity,  on  this  score  alone, 
for  development  of  originality,  than  has  the  poet ; 
for  the  work  of  the  painter  is  designed  to  meet 
the  demand  of  a  relatively  cultivated  and  catholic 
taste,  whereas  the  poet  must  please  the  multitude 
if  his  art  is  to  yield  him  sustenance).  What  is  of 
present  importance  is   the  implied   deference  to 

'  "  National  Art  in  a  National  Metropolis,"  The  Inter- 
national Quarterly,  vi.,  i. 


9^       Poetry  and  the  Individual 

an  objective  organon  restricting  artistic  independ- 
ence. Poetry,  of  course,  is  not  affected,  save 
possibly  in  laureate  and  celebrant  usages ;  but  it 
is  quite  evident  that  there  must  be  subjections  of 
painting  and  sculpture  to  decorative  harmonies 
and  general  schemata  :  of  one  mind  to  the  needs 
of  many  where  a  group  of  artists  is  called  upon  to 
interweave  designs ;  of  the  whole  expression  to 
the  utilities  of  the  object  or  structure  decorated, 
and  yet  again  to  the  turn  of  public  taste.  The 
bent  of  such  an  art  could  only  be  toward  conven- 
tions bound  to  cramp  individuality.  It  must 
gradually  establish  canons,  if  not  of  Egyptian  im- 
perturbability, yet  inevitably  restricting  that  com- 
petition of  ideals  by  means  of  which  art  seems  to 
gather  its  riches.  The  issue  to  be  faced  is  ethical 
and  of  dual  import, —  for  we  must  ask  in  the  first 
place  whether  such  a  restriction  of  individualism 
might  not  result  in  a  real  and  lasting  impoverish- 
ment in  the  realm  of  beauties  made  apparent,  and 
in  the  second  place  whether  the  artist  himself 
works  so  predominatingly  for  social  ends  that  he 
need  feel  that  abashment  before  society's  judg- 
ments which  Mr.  Low  would  impress  upon  him. 
For  light  upon  both  these  questions  we  must  at- 
tempt some  deeper-going  analysis  of  universality. 
I  recall  two  paintings  which  irresistibly  suggest 
to  my  mind  the  mood  of  mystical  consciousness. 
In  the  Boston  Museum  of  Fine  Arts  is  one  —  Mr. 
JohnW.  Alexander's  The  Pot  of  Basil ;  the  other, 
a  girl's  head  by  M.  Henner,  is  in  the  Philadelphia 


Universal  and  Individual        97 

Academy.  The  Pot  of  Basil  possesses  the  decora- 
tive quality,  characteristic  of  the  artist's  work,  to 
an  insistent  degree — it  seems  almost  to  demand 
architectural  setting.  Nevertheless  its  univer- 
sality does  not  lie  here  ;  rather  it  is  to  be  found  in 
the  picture's  symbolism — in  the  iueflfable  grace 
and  brooding  beauty  of  the  eternal  feminine  in  the 
mid- mystery  of  the  dream  of  love.  In  contrast 
with  the  pearly  softness  and  lustrous  listlessness  of 
Mr.  Alexander's  Isabella,  is  the  imperious,  tyran- 
nical self-sufl5ciency  of  the  girl  M.  Henner  paints. 
There  is  a  red  hood  shadowing  a  white  face,  and 
the  intense  fey-sighted  Celticism  of  wide  eyes, 
eager  with  personality,  latent  with  poetic  history. 
It  is  just  in  this  contrast  of  symbol  and  person- 
ality that  we  must  distinguish  the  universal  and 
the  particular  ;  but  it  is  not  a  distinction  of  uni- 
versal and  individual.  Both  pictures  possess 
individuality, —  for  the  one,  in  harmonious  self- 
completeness,  classic  purity  as  of  a  Platonic  Idea  ; 
for  the  other,  in  romantic  complexity,  scope  of 
suggestion,  and  vividness  of  element.  I  cite  this 
instance,  because  there  is  apt  to  be  confusion  of 
the  difference  between  the  particular  and  the  uni- 
versal individual,  with  the  difference  between  the 
individual  and  the  generic  universal;  and  thence 
arise  ambiguities.  Only  the  second  difference  is 
significant  in  the  pros  and  cons  of  any  contention 
over  universality  in  art;  accordingly  we  will  pass 
to  some  consideration  of  it  as  it  appears  in  Aris- 
totelianism. 


98       Poetry  and  the  Individual 

Any  understanding  of  Aristotle  must  begin 
with  comprehension  of  the  fundamental  dual- 
ity of  his  thought.  B}'^  nature  and  instinct  he 
was  profoundly  empirical, "  thoroughly  imbued 
with  that  spirit  of  tentative  experimentation 
which  nowadays  we  identify  with  science  and 
its  methods.  But  he  was  also,  and  always,  a 
disciple  of  Plato,  foremost  among  dialecticians  ; 
and  it  was  the  Platonic  dialectic  and  creed  that 
really  transformed  Aristotle  the  physician  into 
Aristotle  the  philosopher.  In  his  metaphysic  the 
function  of  the  Formal  Cause,  the  Form  (f/do?), 
is  directly  derived  from  that  of  the  Idea  in  Pla- 
tonism.  Aristotle's  concern,  and  the  gist  of  his 
falling  away  from  the  master  of  the  Academy, 
was  with  the  incarnation  of  the  Form  in  the  world 
of  immediate  experience;  the  ideal  was  not  for  him 
as  for  Plato  a  denizen  of  some  far  empyrean,  but 
it  was  the  essential  nature,  however  faultily  em- 
bodied, of  the  reality  that  is  given  us.  The  uni- 
versal he  still  conceived  as  the  patterning  type, 
the  ideal  individual,  unto  which  the  brute  matter 
of  Nature  ceaselessl}'  aspires,  though  perfect  at- 
tainment is  hampered  by  the  stoffliche  implasticity 
of  earthly  substance.  Nevertheless,  at  times 
empiric  instinct  and  practice  led  him  to  a  con- 
ception of  the  universal  not  dissimilar  from  the 
inductive  generalisation  of  modern  method  (a 
universal  wholly  at  odds  with  the  Platonic),  and 
hence  arises  that  shadowing  ambiguity  which 
has  given  so  much  pause  and  pain  to  his  com- 


Universal  and  Individual         99 

mentators.  In  the  Poetics  Aristotle  frankly  in- 
clines to  genetic  analysis.  From  an  instinct  for 
rhythm  and  harmony  came  the  rude  improvisa- 
tions whence  poetry  springs '  ;  while  it  is  happy 
chance  rather  than  art  that  has  led  poets,  experi- 
mentally, to  the  discovery  of  tragic  quality.'^ 
Such  a  point  of  view  naturally  leads  to  an  induc- 
tively generalised  universal  (and  hence  the  per- 
vading flavour  of  empiricism) ;  but  when  he  comes 
to  the  actual  definition  of  the  universal  in  poetry, 
we  are  not  left  in  doubt, — the  Platonic  Idea  alone 
is  meant. 

Poetry  is  a  more  philosophical  and  a  higher  thing  than 
history  :  for  poetry  tends  to  express  the  universal,  history 
the  particular.  By  the  universal  I  mean  how  a  person  of 
a  certain  type  will  on  occasion  speak  or  act,  according  to 
the  law  of  probability  or  necessity ;  and  it  is  this  univer- 
sality at  which  poetry  aims  in  the  names  she  attaches  to 
the  personages.^ 

Again  and  more  explicitly  in  the  passage  justify- 
ing the  dictum  that  to  poetic  truth  ' '  a  probable 
impossibility  is  to  be  preferred  to  a  thing  improb- 
able and  yet  possible,  .  .  .  the  impossible 
is  the  higher  thing;  for  the  ideal  types  must  sur- 
pass the  reality."  * 

It  is  sufficiently  certain  that  Aristotle  conceived 
universality  in  poetry  (and  in  all  reality)  as  typic 
of  the  individual ;  it  is  the  individual's  essential 

'  Poetics,  iv.  "^  Ibid.,  xiv. 

^  Poetics,  ix,  Butcher's  translation.  *  Ibid.,  xxv. 


loo     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

nature  as  it  would  be  when  freed  from  aberrant 
eccentricities.  It  seems,  therefore,  permissible  to 
offer  some  criticism  of  the  conception  of  Aristote- 
lianism  offered  by  Mr.  Courthope.  There  is  a  hint 
of  hazy  fluctuation  in  the  critic's  thought, —  one 
is  not  always  sure  of  the  tack;  but  the  main  turn, 
palpably  leaning  to  objective  readings,  is  evident 
enough.     His  own  language  best  defines  : 

By  the  universal  element  I  mean  what  we  often  call  by 
the  name  Nature :  whatever  is  furnished  naturally  to  the 
poet's  conception  by  forces  outside  himself ;  the  sources 
of  inspiration  springing  from  the  religion,  tradition, 
civilisation,  education  of  the  country  to  which  he  belongs; 
the  general  atmosphere  of  the  age  in  which  he  lives  ;  the 
common  law  of  the  language  in  which  he  composes.  By 
the  individual  element  I  mean  what  we  usually  call  Art ; 
including  all  that  helps  to  constitute  the  characteristic 
form  or  mould  in  which  the  universal  idea  is  expressed.' 

To  be  sure,  Mr.  Courthope  is  here  speaking  of 
the  universal  and  individual  in  the  poet's  mind; 
but  it  is  from  these  that  the  like  qualities  arise  in 
art.  It  is  on  the  basis  of  such  understanding  that 
he  interprets  the  character  of  the  universal  ideas 
which  poetry  expresses,  establishes  criteria  of 
criticism,  condemns  "  an  eccentric  and  monastic 
principle"  in  modern  society  "  which  leads  men 
to  pervert  metre  into  a  luxurious  instrument  for 
the  expression  of  merel}'  private  ideas,"  ^  and  is- 
sues pronouncement  to  the  effect  that  "  the  secret 

'  Li/e  in  Poetry.    Law  in  Taste  (1901),  p.  89. 
^ Ibid., -p.  83. 


Universal  and  Individual         loi 

of  enduring  poetical  life  lies  in  individualising  the 
universal,  not  in  universalising  the  individual."  ' 
Perhaps  I  do  wrong  to  align  Mr.  Courthope  with 
Aristotelianism  ;  for  Aristotle  would  surely  find 
the  secret  of  poetic  power  in  the  very  opposite — in 
the  freeing  of  the  individual  from  all  that  makes 
for  mere  particularity,  all  that  overtakes  him  by 
chance,  from  the  accidentia  of  life  ;  and  so  in  por- 
traying him,  sub  specie  cEternitatis^  made  typic  and 
universal.  Mr.  Courthope' s  thought  is  dominated 
by  the  critic's  desire  to  establish  principles  of  criti- 
cism upon  a  sure  foundation  of  objective  certitude; 
he  demands  law,  analogous  to  physical  law  in  jus- 
sive force,  in  the  realm  of  taste.  For  its  formula- 
tion there  is  necessary  measure  and  instrument, 
and  these  he  would  find  in  empirically  generalised 
universals.  It  is  diflScult  to  see  how,  for  example, 
such  an  art  as  portraiture  could  be  justified  on  his 
principles,  but  much  that  grows  from  his  method 
and  bent  is  true.  It  is  indisputable,  that  limit- 
ations of  environment  and  tradition,  inherent 
predispositions  of  race  and  heredity,  natural  man- 
nerisms of  education  and  language,  all  tend,  as 
time  passes,  to  fix  objective  canons  of  art.  But 
there  is  an  opposing  force — the  errant  and  individ- 
ual right  of  genius.  Convention,  not  true  univer- 
sality, grows  out  of  the  generalising  process;  it  is 
the  office  of  genius  to  break  through  conventions, 
to  create  and  justify  new  universal  types;  it 
battles  (to  be  sure,  with  many  defeats  and  few 
'  Ibid.,  p.  86. 


102     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

winnings)  for  the  recognition  of  unaccustomed 
ideals  and  the  seating  of  fresher-blooded  deities 
among  the  Olympians.  Nor  is  it  likely  that  any 
objective  organon  for  its  activities  can  be  estab- 
lished so  long  as  the  human  mind  grows. 

A  better  Aristotelianism  is  to  be  found  in  the 
Platonism  of  Professor  Woodberry.  To  quote 
from  the  New  Defence  of  Poetry  partakes  somewhat 
of  the  desecrative  boldness  that  transplants  a  rare 
exotic  or  plucks  the  wild-rose  from  its  native 
prairie;  yet  I  cannot  forbear  transcribing  one  sug- 
gestive passage  which  goes  straight  to  the  heart 
of  the  matter,  showing  in  the  ideal  not  alone  the 
chaste  universality  of  the  Platonic  Idea,  but  the 
inmoulding  power  of  Aristotle's  Formal  Cause  as 
well. 

The  ideal  world  ...  is  thus  built  up,  through  per- 
sonality in  all  its  richness,  by  a  perfected  imitation  of 
life  itself,  and  is  set  forth  in  universal  unities  of  relation, 
causal  or  formal,  to  the  intellect  in  its  inward,  to  the 
sense  of  beauty  in  its  outward,  aspects  ;  and  thereby  de- 
lighting the  desire  of  the  mind  for  lucid  and  lovely  order, 
it  generates  joy,  and  thence  is  born  the  will  to  conform 
one's  self  to  this  order.  If,  then,  this  order  be  conceived 
as  known  in  its  principles  and  in  operation  in  living 
souls,  as  existing  in  its  completeness  on  the  simplest 
scale  in  an  entire  series  of  illustrative  instances  but  with- 
out multiplicity, — if  it  be  conceived,  that  is,  as  the  model 
of  a  world, — that  would  be  to  know  it  as  it  exists  to  the 
mind  of  God  ;  that  would  be  to  contemplate  the  world  of 
ideas  as  Plato  conceived  it  seen  by  the  soul  before  birth. 
That  is  the  beatific  vision.  If  it  be  conceived  in  its  mor- 
tal  movement   as   a   developing   world   on   earth,   that 


Universal  and  Individual         103 

would  be  to  know  "the  plot  of  God,"  as  Poe  called  the 
universe.* 

And  it  would  be,  too,  an  understanding  of  Aris- 
totle, and  of  his  conception  of  the  embodiment  of 
the  universal. 

And  now  the  significant  phrase  :  the  ideal  world 
is  built  tip  through  personality.  Here  at  last  we 
have  the  issue  of  the  artist's  right:  to  what  extent 
is  expression  of  localised  personality  warranted  ? 
to  what  extent  may  he  universalise  private  indi- 
viduality ?  We  know  that  schools  come  and  pass, 
that  innovators  arise  but  to  win  speedy  oblivion; 
time  judges,  we  say,  and  sets  a  limit  to  all  caprice 
and  whim  ;  what,  then,  shall  he  do  who  would 
gain  the  worthy  end  of  art?  I  think  the  sub- 
stance of  the  answer  is  to  be  found  in  my  italics. 
Just  as  in  the  world  of  actuality  Nature  advances 
by  slow  and  tentative  experimentation,  calling 
many,  choosing  few,  so  in  the  ideal  world  many 
are  called  and  few  chosen.  But  it  is  the  duty  of 
every  man  to  be  an  artist,  a  creator  of  the  ideal  to 
the  fulness  of  the  measure  and  insight  vouchsafed 
him;  only  so  may  there  be  blocks  for  the  builder 
and  the  ideal  world  itself  be  made  a  living  pos- 
sibility. The  man's  work  may  fail,  pass  into 
what  we  piteously  and  a  bit  blindly  call  the  com- 
mon lot,  but  he  will  have  performed  the  task  for 
which  he  was  brought  forth  and  in  some  degree 
will  have  aided  in  the  firm  establishment  of  a 

'  The  Heart  of  Man  (1899),  pp.  169-70. 


I04     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

dominant  human  beauty.  But  more  :  the  final 
meaning  of  the  world  is  not  racial,  it  is  personal. 
For  each  man  of  us  there  is  an  ideal  self  as  ear- 
nestly to  be  sought  for  its  own  sake  as  the  world 
of  ideals  is  to  be  sought  for  its  sake.  Who  can 
say  that  the  reward  of  anysoever  pursuit  of  beauty 
may  not  lie  just  in  the  vision  of  it,  however  im- 
perfect, however  circumscribed  ?  Plato  taught 
that  brute  matter  itself,  perceiving  dimly  and  afar 
the  ideal  universe,  lifts  toward  it,  yearns  for  it, 
aye,  with  a  passion  as  of  a  lover  for  his  love,  till, 
by  the  dumb  might  of  its  desire,  it  wins  some 
shadowing  of  divinity.  And  who  shall  say  that 
there  is  not  some  like- won  divinity  for  the  sorriest 
foundling  of  destiny,  the  brazenest  scapegrace 
Scaramouche,  the  veriest  poor  devil  of  a  Villon  ? 

It  is,  then,  the  artist's  right  and  duty  to  express 
as  best  he  may  his  own  essential  nature,  as  it  is 
his  right  and  duty  to  be  always  true  to  that  na- 
ture. In  so  doing  he  may  advance  with  sure  and 
even  tread  to  a  station  among  the  immortals,  or 
he  may  enter  the  dark  solitudes  of  lasting  un- 
comprehension;  in  either  case  he  lives  his  life. 
Yet  as  time  passes,  it  seems  likely  that  oftener 
and  oftener  buried  voices,  dumb  in  their  own  day, 
will  be  resurrected  or  re-embodied  to  kindlier 
eras;  for  as  in  the  moral  world  the  trend  of  evolu- 
tion is  toward  broader  and  more  inclusive  sym- 
pathies, till  where  once  man  had  heart  only  for 
nearest  kin,  now  his  compassion  reaches  even  be- 
yond the  bounds  of  his  humanhood  to  some  far- 


Universal  and  Individual         105 

echoed  fellowship  with  the  beasts  of  the  field,  so 
also  in  the  world  of  art  there  is  ever-growing 
catholicity  of  taste  and  sympathy  and  tireless  rais- 
ings of  new  altars  in  the  temple  of  beauty.  The 
gladiatorial  arena  is  of  the  far  past,  and  gone  are 
the  bear-baitings  of  Stuart  days, — swept  away  by 
that  waxing  moral  tide.  Similarlj^,  in  the  liter- 
ary world,  Johnsonian  finalities  are  flotsam  and 
jetsam,  and  a  broader,  less  tyrannous  individu- 
ality governs  mind  and  eye.  Those  who  sigh  for 
the  authoritative  objectivity  of  eras  gone  and  ac- 
cuse our  own  of  weak  and  paltry  subjectivities 
might  well  reflect  on  this  phenomenon  of  expand- 
ing sympathy.  Subjectivity  is  but  token  that  we 
are  coming  more  and  more  to  find  the  enduring 
ideal  in  things  of  the  spirit;  there  are  to-day  deli- 
cacies of  insight,  shades  of  feeling  and  meaning 
unnoted  in  times  past ;  and  certainly  the  demo- 
cratisation  of  intellect  is  not  more  characteristic 
of  our  age  than  the  democratisation  of  the  heart. 
It  is  to  be  doubted  if  even  the  greatest  of  the 
Elizabethans  could  have  portrayed  all  the  subtle 
complexity  of  a  Sordello  or  a  Paracelsus,  and  it  is 
well-nigh  certain  that  he  could  not  have  created  a 
contemporary  comprehension  of  them.  To-day 
we  realise  that  broadening  sympathy  means 
spiritual  life,  and  that  no  personality  is  so  poor 
but  that,  could  we  understand,  it  might  enrich 
our  world  with  beauty  unforeseen. 


CHAPTER  V 

THB  IMAGINATION 

I — THK  office;  of  imagination 

THERE  is  a  kind  of  inherent  futility  in  any 
effort  to  understand  the  world.  Our  know- 
ledge is  at  best  a  parable,  and  the  understanding 
mind,  the  human  mind  whose  business  it  is  to  in- 
terpret the  dark  revelation,  is  itself  but  a  filtration 
of  the  mystery  it  seeks  to  comprehend;  the  very 
substance  of  the  comprehension  is  also  the  sub- 
stance of  the  puzzle.  Man  is  the  measure  of  re- 
alit}'',  but  that  may  be  wholly  because  reality 
comes  to  us  humanised  :  our  perceptions  not  only 
colour  the  world  of  substantial  things,  but  they 
colour  our  understanding  as  well  and  give  to  all 
our  knowledge  the  bias  of  their  aberrations;  our 
emotions  not  only  enliven  the  grey  hues  of 
thought,  but  they  also,  as  we  say,  warm  with 
human  interest  that  play  of  fact  which  is  the 
thought's  mainstay  and  source;  our  desires  not 
only  make  reasonable  our  aggressions,  but  they 
also  animate  the  counter-aggressions  of  the  world 
at  large,  and  so  make  that  world  intelligible  to 
1 06 


The  Imagination  107 

us.  But  the  intelligibility  can  never  be  more  than 
seeming.  All  we  can  do  is  to  measure  one  type 
of  reality  upon  a  scale  framed  from  some  other 
type  which  is  itself  no  more  honestly  understood. 
There  is  a  topsy-turvy  and  a  see-saw  underlying 
every  rationalisation  of  reality,  and  the  more  am- 
bitious the  reasoning  the  steeper  the  mental  tilt, 
so  that  it  is  not  unlikely  that  the  very  salvation 
of  sanity  is  the  plain  man's  inveterate  suspicion 
of  logic. 

And  yet  mental  life  exists  wholly  as  a  process 
of  world-comprehension,  its  activity  is  wholly 
struggle  for  insight  into  the  nature  of  things. 
Perhaps  more  truly  its  activity  is  struggle  for  as- 
similation of  things,  its  motive  appetitive,  and  the 
comprehension  literally  to  be  conceived  as  a  con- 
taining of  the  world's  essence.  Comprehension 
ceases  in  this  sense  to  be  understanding;  it  no 
longer  pertains  exclusively  to  rational  processes; 
it  is  mental  power,  spiritual  power,  in  the  widest 
sense,  for  it  is  the  power  by  which  the  soul  grows 
and  gathers  into  its  own  confines  fuller  portion  of 
the  life  illimitable.  Perception  furnishes  through 
the  senses  the  raw  material  which  is  the  sub- 
stance of  the  house  of  thought,  and  the  under- 
standing weighs  and  gauges,  assorts  and  classifies 
this  material  for  our  better  convenience  and  need. 
But  perception  is  too  narrow  a  term  for  the  acquisi- 
tive oflSce,  for  perception  implies  an  apprehension 
restricted  to  phenomena  "  given  from  without," 
as  Kant  phrased  it.     Now  the  mental  life  is  not 


io8     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

to  be  conceived  merely  on  the  analogy  of  a  receiv- 
ing house, —  a  taking  in  of  goods  delivered  to  it, 
an  assorting  and  rating  of  them;  rather  it  has  en- 
terprise of  its  own,  a  power  of  reaching  out  and 
taking  what  lies  beyond  its  initial  bounds.  This 
is  the  power  of  active  comprehension  and  is  as 
near  the  vital  principle  as  we  are  like  to  come. 
Sometimes  the  activity  is  willed,  sometimes  it  is 
involuntary  and  spontaneous,  but  always  its  es- 
sential nature  is  attainment  of  new  insight  and 
conquest  of  new  dominion.  And  since  this  attain- 
ment is  not  by  grant  from  without,  but  by  dint 
of  individual  effort,  we  call  it  creation,  meaning 
thereby  a  widened  comprehension  of  the  world's 
possibilities. 

The  energy  of  the  mind  or  of  the  soul  —  for  it 
welds  all  psychical  activities — which  is  the  agent 
of  our  world-winnings  and  the  procreator  of  our 
growing  life,  we  term  imagination.  It  is  distin- 
guished from  perception  by  its  relative  freedom 
from  the  dictation  of  sense;  it  is  distinguished 
from  memory  by  its  power  to  acquire, —  memory 
only  retains  ;  it  is  distinguished  from  emotion  in 
being  a  force  rather  than  a  motive  ;  from  the  un- 
derstanding in  being  an  assimilator  rather  than 
the  mere  weigher  of  what  is  set  before  it;  from 
the  will,  because  the  will  is  but  the  wielder  of  the 
reins, — the  will  is  but  the  charioteer,  the  imagina- 
tion is  the  Pharaoh  in  command.  It  is  distin- 
guished from  all  these,  yet  it  includes  them  all, 
for  it  is  the  full  functioning  of  the  whole  mind 


The  Imagination  109 

and  in  the  total  activity  drives  all  mental  faculties 
to  its  one  supreme  end — the  widening  of  the  world 
wherein  we  dwell.  Through  beauty  the  world 
grows,  and  it  is  the  business  of  the  imagination 
to  create  the  beautiful.  The  imagination  syn- 
thesises,  humanises,  personalises,  illumines  re- 
ality with  the  soul's  most  intimate  moods,  and 
so  exalts  with  spiritual  understandings. 

Imagination  is  the  faculty  of  making  ideal  syn- 
theses. But  its  synthetic  activity  is  not  governed 
by  the  principle  of  identity;  it  does  not  proceed 
by  classification.  Classifications  are  based  wholly 
upon  judgments  of  likeness.  We  affirm  that  one 
thing  resembles  another  and  so  belongs  to  the 
same  class;  we  do  this  by  analysing  the  two 
things  and  finding  certain  elements  in  each  that 
correspond  in  all  particulars  excepting  the  fact  of 
their  disjunction  in  time  or  space,  and  placing  the 
likened  things  in  equation  we  adjudge  their  simi- 
larity, not  forgetting  that  they  still  remain  two. 
Such  a  process  is  a  process  of  understanding,  it  is 
thinking  by  simile.  But  imaginative  synthesis  is 
more  than  this:  it  is  never  a  mechanical  relating 
of  elements;  it  is  a  vital  relating,  a  growing  to- 
gether into  new  being;  it  is  thinking  by  metaphor. 
Organic  growth  is  its  only  analogue  in  the  natural 
world, —  something  becomes  other  than  what  it 
was,  arises  out  of  other  things,  is  created  from 
other  things.  But  the  esse  of  the  new  creation, 
and  its  essential  nature,  is  not  to  be  explained  by 
the  elements  from  which  it  sprang;  the  only  way 


no     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

we  can  understand  its  relation  to  those  elements 
is  by  analysing  the  whole  course  and  process  of 
its  growth  from  them.  Ability  to  make  such 
analysis  depends  upon  the  mind's  natural  equip- 
ment, upon  its  familiarity  with  imaginative  life, 
and  upon  its  powers  of  sympathy.  There  is 
necessary  an  inherent  disposition  for  understand- 
ing its  own  metaphoric  expression  in  art.  This 
is  why  art  that  is  concerned  with  fragile  or  way- 
ward instincts  of  the  mind  is  certain  to  develop 
cult  or  coterie, — its  message  is  only  for  the  few  in 
whom  the  sun  of  its  peculiar  metaphor  may  warm 
into  life  a  similar  growth. 

All  synthesis  of  this  type — the  type  of  becom- 
ing— is,  then,  creation;  but  it  is  not  certain  that 
all  imaginative  creation  is  synthesis.  It  ma}'  be 
that  there  are  forms  of  experience  absolutely 
new  and  incomparable,  born  of  no  reality  with 
which  we  have  acquaintance,  which  come  into 
existence  as  by  fiat,  and  enter  into  and  mould  the 
substance  of  the  world.  We  seem  to  find  hint  of 
such  experiences  in  the  rhapsodical  affirmations 
of  the  mystics,  and  we  can  have  no  data  whereby 
to  judge  their  right  or  wrong  save  we  experience 
what  they  experience.  But  the  principle  of  varia- 
tion in  evolution  might  lead  to  similar  possibility 
of  new  creation;  whatever  our  ideal  of  the  in- 
flexible universality  of  the  causal  nexus,  our 
present  knowledge  compels  us  to  reckon  with  an 
indefinite  extension  of  chance,  and  we  are  never 
likely  to  be  able  to  den}',  what  in  our  experience 


The  Imagination  m 

so  often  seems  to  happen,  that  chance  becomings, 
miracles,  are  verities  of  nature.  The  insight 
vouchsafed  to  genius,  for  example,  is  often  wholly 
beyond  the  ken  of  the  normal  human  mind;  we 
can  only  vaguely  approximate  and  through  toil 
grasp  the  prophetic  trend;  the  substance  of  the 
thought  can  never  be  precisely  ours.  In  some 
degree  this  is  true  of  all  imaginative  creation; 
there  is  always  an  untraceable  element  in  that 
which  is  brought  forth  which  can  only  be  ac- 
counted miracle, —  the  miracle  of  that  infinite 
vitality  which  the  evolutionists  formulate  as  the 
tendency  to  vary. 

Even  appreciation  of  art,  or  understanding  of 
any  human  expression  for  that  matter,  rests 
largely  upon  this  same  factor  of  chance.  Ap- 
preciation means  re-creation,  the  vitalising  anew 
of  the  artist's  handicraft.  Meanings  are  patent 
only  to  those  who  are  able,  in  the  measure  of  their 
understanding,  to  live  the  life  of  the  metaphor 
which  is  the  gist  of  all  expression.  Art  grows 
upon  us,  we  say,  meaning  that  its  life  coalesces 
with  our  life;  for  doubtless  the  energy  put  into 
the  art's  creation  is  in  a  way  inherent  in  it,  giv- 
ing it  power  to  awaken  to  wide-seeing  response 
the  slumbering  dream  of  it  in  our  own  souls;  nor 
could  the  response  ever  come  were  the  dream  not 
waiting  the  summons. 

In  appreciation  we  touch  the  social  character  of 
imagination,  but  not  the  essence  of  the  creative 
process.     Appreciation  is  wholly  dependent  upon 


1 1 2     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

the  embodied  expression  —  the  language,  the  im- 
age, the  sensuous  appeal, —  but  all  these  are  only 
the  dress  of  the  true  vitality;  the  soul  of  it  is  an 
altogether  individual  possession,  whether  in  first 
creation  or  in  re-creation  through  appreciation. 
Even  where  the  appreciation  is  perfect,  where,  if 
that  be  possible,  the  construction  in  the  artist's 
mind  cannot  be  distinguished  from  the  apprecia- 
tive reconstruction,  there  is  still  no  lack  of  in- 
dependence. Bach  imagination  is  free,  each  is 
individual.  Appreciation  is  appropriation, —  a 
taking  for  one's  own,  but  a  taking  that  does  not 
rob. 

There  is  something  very  like  a  puzzle  in  the  re- 
lation of  individual  and  commune  to  the  world  of 
ideas.  That  world  is  a  social  world — a  universe 
of  discourse,  of  common  understandings,  as  the 
logicians  have  it.  We  live  in  it,  think  in  it,  work 
in  it,  jointly  and  by  mutual  aids  and  furtherings. 
Our  ideas  are  the  most  intimate  and  the  most 
public  of  our  possessions, —  ours  and  all  the 
world's  beside.  Kven  our  ideals,  as  embodied  in 
art,  must  take  form  and  substance  from  this  world 
if  they  are  to  be  understood.  And  understood 
not  alone  by  others,  but  by  ourselves  :  for  our 
self- understandings,  too,  are  communally  decreed; 
we  have  so  grown  to  live  in  the  tavern  of  public 
thought  that  it  is  but  rarely  and  dim  that  we 
really  grasp  the  fine  essence  of  meanings  ;  brought 
face  to  face  with  our  own  nature,  it  seems  to  us 
the  strangest  and  most  fantastic,  as  it  is  the  most 


The  Imagination  113 

elusive  and  incomprehensible,  of  all  natures.  And 
yet  this  nature,  not  in  its  nakedness  but  clothed 
in  the  raiment  of  ideal  representation,  is  what  the 
imagination  is  ever  striving  to  make  clear  to  the 
wondering  mind.  That  is  its  individualising, 
idealising  office,  and  the  character  which  makes 
its  higher  accomplishment  seem  like  inspired 
revelation. 

We  may  say,  then,  that  the  work  of  the  im- 
agination is  first  the  enlargement  of  our  world 
through  the  widening  vitality  of  comprehension, 
and  second  an  awakening  and  revealing  of  the 
nature  of  the  self  hidden  beneath  the  cumbering 
coverlet  of  communal  thinking.  In  both  of  these 
ofBces  its  action  is  a  humanising  action.  By  hu- 
manising action  I  mean  an  interpretation  of  ex- 
perience in  terms  of  human  motive  and  design; 
and  that  is  what  the  imagination  does  in  render- 
ing the  world  intelligible  to  us,  and  that  is  what 
intelligibility  means.  Whether  we  will  or  no,  all 
our  interpretation  of  the  world  is  a  process  of  ani- 
mating with  the  motives  and  ideas  by  which  we 
can  understand  what  before  seemed  foreign  to  us; 
whatever  we  gain  comprehension  of,  we  seize 
upon  and  assimilate  into  our  own  being,  as  the 
amoeba  envelops  and  absorbs  its  food;  that  which 
had  been  extraneous  is  become  a  part  of  ourselves 
and  is  enlivened  with  our  life.  This  is  why  all 
art  is  animistic,  and  that  art  which  endows  with 
the  richest  and  fullest  life  is  highest  and  best  be- 
cause it  most  thoroughly  interprets. 


114     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

But  if  this  is  the  ofl&ce  of  the  imagination,  we 
must  not  overlook  that  the  condition  which  makes 
imaginative  attainment  possible  serves  also  to 
limit  it  and  set  its  bound.  I  refer  to  material 
embodiment,  the  stuff  of  reality  in  which  imagi- 
nation must  work.  Whether  this  stuff  be  marble 
or  musical  notes  or  language  or  mental  images  or 
abstract  ideas,  it  always  possesses  a  positive  char- 
acter of  its  own  which  leaves  it  not  wholly  plastic 
to  the  bent  of  creative  intention.  In  itself  it  is 
not  animate,  rather  it  is  the  matter  from  which 
the  living  world  is  wrought,  the  substance  which 
is  vitalised,  the  clay  into  which  is  breathed  the 
breath  of  life.  The  imagination  moulds  it  toward 
ideal  ends,  stamps  it  with  the  subtle  die  of  the 
soul's  desire,  and  it  in  turn  gives  to  the  idealising 
energy  the  dress  and  semblance  of  reality.  None 
the  less  it  hampers  while  it  aids.  It  possesses  a 
native  energy  of  resistance  due  to  its  intrinsic 
form,  and  so  restricts  the  growth  and  incarnation 
of  the  soul.  To  a  degree  we  are  all  blind  and 
deaf,  and  only  in  the  measure  of  our  sight  and 
hearing  may  we  hope  to  realise  spiritual  possibili- 
ties. The  self's  full  nature  can  never  be  revealed 
to  us  because  of  the  trammelling  of  sense  and  the 
social  cast  of  thought;  only  in  so  far  as  it  may 
find  a  substance  of  reality,  a  fashion  in  the  nature 
of  things  capable  of  receiving  its  impress  may  it  be 
hinted  to  intelligence.  But  never  may  the  ideal 
which  is  that  full  nature  be  more  than  a  shadowed 
pattern,  and  no  art,  at  the  last,  can  more  than 


The  Imagination  115 

suggest,  even  to  the  mind  that  brought  it  forth, 
the  spirit's  whole  intention.  Beauty  is  our  most 
perfect  realisation  of  the  dim-visioned  nature,  but 
even  in  what  beauty  grants  more  is  denied;  the 
fabric  of  reality  which  is  its  vesture  and  its  sub- 
stance, though  not  its  illumining  soul,  sets  seal 
of  insuflSciency  upon  all  its  attainment  ;  all  that 
beauty  gives  is  a  tantalising  wraith  of  more 
ethereal  beatitude.  That  is  why  in  all  beauty  is  a 
wistfulness  and  sorrow;  but  that  is  why  beauty  is 
eternal,  too,  for  each  attainment  limns  ideals  be- 
yond and  so  gives  promise  of  infinitudes  of 
charm.  But  this  very  infinity  imbues  us  with 
that  eager  aspiration  which  is  the  mainspring  of 
imaginative  activity  and  so  the  secret  of  our 
growing  life. 

II — the;  ei^kmknts  of  imagination 

What  at  first  sight  would  seem  to  be  the  easiest 
and  surest  of  all  studies,  the  introspective  study 
of  mental  processes,  is  in  reality  the  most  toilsome 
and  uncertain.  Accurate  observation  requires 
an  unbiased  mind;  but  the  very  nature  of  some 
mental  phenomena  is  mental  bias,  while  every 
emotion  vitiates  and  colours  the  state  of  mind  of 
which  it  forms  a  part.  Introspective  impartiality, 
therefore,  seldom  if  ever  co-exists  with  the  psychi- 
cal activities  which  are  the  object  of  introspective 
interest.  Such  activities  always  have  to  be  ob- 
served retrospectively,  either  in  memory   or   in 


ii6     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

half  vision  of  their  fleeing  forms;  our  best  are  but 
scant  glimpses  of  tergant  fugitives. 

Most  diflScult  of  all  is  introspection  of  synthetic 
processes  of  mind,  and  especially  of  imaginative 
synthesis.  There  is  a  natural  antithesis  between 
analytical  observation  and  that  free  yielding  to 
creative  impulse  which  fills  the  mind  with  daz- 
zling phantasmagoria.  Not  the  most  tentative 
rapprochement  of  the  two  states  is  possible;  they 
are  hopelessly  alien.  All  that  the  analytical  ob- 
servation can  give  is  a  foreigner's  haphazard  jot- 
tings of  the  more  salient  features  of  the  other's 
character, — jottings  likeliest  to  be  set  down  in 
a  spirit  of  showman's  pride  or  of  arrogant  in- 
credulit}'. 

Hence  the  impossibility  of  really  settling  upon 
the  gist  of  imagination  is  conceded  in  advance; 
one  might  as  well  hope  to  ferret  out  the  secret  of 
life  with  tweezers  and  scalpel.  The  best  we  can 
do  is  to  approach  the  phenomena  externally, 
sketch  their  material  embodiments  (images,  ideas, 
emotions),  and  guess  at  the  contour  of  the  under- 
lying process.  It  is  doubtful  if  the  secret  spring, 
imaginative  energy  and  will,  can  ever  be  made 
diagrammatically  plausible  ;  to  know  it  at  all  we 
must  have  experience  of  it, —  and  perhaps  it  is 
only  to  the  measure  of  our  experience  that  we 
may  escape  incredulity. 

I.  Presentatio7ial  Elements. —  Mental  imagery 
of  the  sensuous  sort  is  the  most  conspicuous  and 
easily  segregated  form  of  imaginative  activity  ; 


The  Imagination  117 

and  to  its  study  the  main  portion  of  psychological 
treatments  of  the  subject  have  been  devoted.  In- 
deed, imagination  was  formerly  defined  as  the 
power  of  imaging;  but  the  inadequacy  of  that 
definition  has  been  sufficiently  emphasised  by  the 
study  of  images  themselves — especially  in  contem- 
porary French  psychology,' — and  it  is  not  now 
subject  of  dispute.  To  begin  with,  it  is  only  by 
unwarranted  extension  that  all  images  may  be 
classified  as  imaginative,  even  for  psychological 
purposes.  Perceptual  illusions  show  how  inti- 
mately the  imaging  power  is  interwoven  with  our 
most  matter-of-fact  perceptions, —  not  to  mention 
night-stalking  ghosts  embodied  from  glimmering 
monuments.  Again,  our  rationalising  thought 
is  all  more  or  less  bound  down  bj'^  symbolising 
imagery.  We  do  not  identify  the  thinking  itself 
with  the  images,  we  recognise  that  there  is 
an  idea  underlying  the  symbolical  expression 
(whether  word  or  mind  picture)  and  a  significance 
rooted  in  the  mind's  life-history  which  is  the 
thought's  true  essence  ;  but  at  the  same  time  we 
are  well  aware  that  the  experimental  verification 
of  reasoning,  constantly  going  on  in  the  mind, 
takes  the  form  of  diagrammatic,  sensuous  repre- 
sentations of  the  ideal  significance,  and  that  just  in 
proportion  as  these  representations  are  difficult  or 
inadequate  our  reasoning  is  likely  to  be  vague  and 
uncertain.     One  might  cite  that  even  so  keen  a 

'  See  especially,  Ribot,  Evolution  des  idies  ginerales 
(1897)  and  Essai  sur  V  imagination  criatrice  (1900). 


ii8     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

mind  as  Huxley's  identified  the  visual  emblem 
with  the  essence  of  the  generic  idea, —  which, 
were  the  identification  true  and  imagination  in- 
deed but  a  facult}'  of  imaging,  would  make  reason- 
ing and  imagining  synonymous. 

And  in  one  aspect  reasoning  is  a  kind  of  im- 
agining. Those  flashes  of  rational  insight  by 
dint  of  which  our  knowledge  grows  are  the  only 
experiences  we  have  closely  akin  to  imaginative 
revelation.  In  each  type  of  experience  tl^ere  is 
a  sudden  synthesis,  a  creation,  an  illumination 
where  before  was  darkness  or  void;  we  see  through 
what  has  been  puzzle  or  blank  wall.  Often 
enough  the  Copernican  vision  of  the  stellar  uni- 
verse or  Newton's  conception  of  gravitation  are 
cited  to  us  as  achievements  of  rational  imagina- 
tion. And  in  their  inception  they  were  so  :  there 
is  no  diflference  between  reason  and  imagination 
so  long  as  the  synthetic  process  only  is  involved. 
The  distinguishing  characteristic  of  reason  lies  in 
the  nature  of  the  judgment  which  the  mind  pro- 
nounces upon  its  creations.  Rational  synthesis 
is  judged  true  or  false,  and  since  the  measure  of 
truth  and  falsity  depends  upon  accord  with  the 
elaborated  structure  of  reality — the  world  as  edu- 
cation and  experience  reveal  it  to  us,  —  there 
is  necessary  some  proof  and  verification  of  the 
synthetic  addition,  and  such  verification  begets 
analysis  and  experimentation  and  all  that  careful 
weighing  of  evidence  and  tracing  of  element  which 
forms  the  main  body  of  our  reasoning.    But  when 


The  Imagination  119 

the  work  of  imagination  is  to  be  judged,  as  to 
whether  it  be  aesthetically  satisfying,  only  the 
ratification  of  the  nature  appealed  to  is  necessary. 
The  standard  is  wholly  subjective;  the  sole  test  is 
appreciation  ;  and,  since  appreciation  is  itself  a 
kind  of  creation,  it  is  never  analytical.  Analysis 
tends  to  destroy  the  appeal,  or  rather  transfers  the 
testing  from  the  realm  of  imagination  to  that  of 
reason;  judgments  of  beauty,  unalloyed,  take  the 
form  of  instinctive  feelings  of  accord,  of  harmony 
with  the  mind's  ideals.  The  work  judged  beau- 
tiful may  be  revelation  embodying  unreckoned 
charm,  but  the  judgment  is  also  and  always 
recognition, — every  revelation  is  self- revelation. 

But  to  return  from  digression.  The  essential 
distinction  of  imaginative  imagery, — or,  more  ex- 
actly, of  imagery  involved  in  imaginative  activity, 
— is  nowhere  made  clearer  than  by  contrast  with 
memory  images.  The  latter  necessarily  furnish 
the  stock  and  material  of  all  mental  constructions, 
whether  aesthetic  or  rational,  but  they  are  limited 
to  reproduction  of  perceptions,  characteristically 
placed  and  dated  in  experience.  Not  that  the  re- 
production must  be  photographic:  even  the  mem- 
ory image  may  be  modified  by  temperamental 
selection,  and  the  artist's  memories  have  com- 
monly an  aesthetic  cast.  Mr.  Philip  Hamerton 
maintains':  "The  memory  of  an  artist  is  dis- 
tinguished from  that  of  other  people  chiefly  by 
this,  that  he  alone  has  really  the  knowledge  of 
'  Imagination  in  Landscape  Painting  (1887). 


T20     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

appearances,  he  is  the  only  person  who  is  able  to 
call  up  images  before  the  mind's  eye  which  are 
distinct  enough  and  permanent  enough  to  be 
painted";  but  this  mere  power  of  reproduction 
must  be  supplemented  bj'^  that  of  ' '  fusing  images 
into  pictorial  wholes, ' '  and  the  secret  of  style  is  as 
much  forgetfulness  as  remembrance — "  the  senti- 
ment of  the  artist  makes  certain  things  interesting 
to  him,  and  as  his  sentiment  governs  the  action 
of  his  memory,  he  remembers  only  what  is  neces- 
sary."    Yet  more  exactly  M.  Souriau  ': 

Strong  as  it  may  be,  tlie  memory  never  reproduces 
nature  with  absolute  fidelity,  it  simplifies  things  ;  it  syn- 
thesises  ;  it  always  exaggerates  a  little  the  characteristics 
which  have  impressed  it.  Such  simplifications  are  ap- 
parent, for  example,  in  the  work  of  Henner ;  such  exag- 
gerations in  that  of  Delacroix.  In  consequence,  what 
personality  in  execution,  and  what  intensity  of  effect ! 
Long  carried  in  the  soul  of  the  artist,  abandoned  to  the 
deep-seated  instincts  of  aesthetic  genius,  how  the  image 
gains  from  this  internal  elaboration  in  power  and 
expression  ! 

But  it  is  plain  that  M.  Souriau's  m^moire  pittor- 
esqiie  already  involves  imaginative  creation, — 
selection  and  sjaithesis  are  signs  of  it;  and  so  we 
arrive  at  the  demarcation  of  imaginative  and 
memory  images.  Ruskin,  ever  insisting  upon  the 
painter's  need  for  clear  seeing,  never  for  a  moment 
confuses  the  memory  image  with  the  virile  crea- 
tion of  the  imagination.     His  distinction  of  the 

'  Z,'  Imagination  de  V  artiste  (1901),  p.  46. 


The  Imagination  121 

"  true  and  false  grotesque  "  admirably  illustrates: 
on  the  one  hand  a  crude  griffin  wrought  into  a 
cathedral  of  Lombardy,  on  the  other  the  finished 
and  conventional  adornment  of  the  Temple  of  An- 
toninus and  Faustina  at  Rome.  The  latter,  he 
says,  was  done  by  rule  and  measure,  and  how- 
ever admirably  adapted  to  the  requirements  of 
the  ornamentation,  it  is  a  palpably  artificial  com- 
position, utterly  incapable  of  inspiring  the  terror 
which  a  grifl&n  should  inspire.  But  the  cathedral 
grifi&n  is  terrible  despite  its  crudity,  because  "  the 
Lombard  workman  did  really  see  a  grifiBn  in  his 
imagination,  and  carved  it  from  the  life,  meaning 
to  declare  to  all  ages  that  he  had  verily  seen  with 
his  immortal  eyes  such  a  griflSn  as  that."  ' 

Of  course  an  image  imaginatively  evolved  may 
be  fixed  in  mind  and  reproduced  in  memory. 
That  is  essential  to  the  stability  that  makes  art 
possible.  The  mind  of  the  artist  produces  many 
more  images  than  are  ratified  by  his  artistic  sense. 
Doubtless  the  sense  tends  to  give  all  his  mental 
imagery  an  artistic  cast,  but  taste  alone  sets  final 
seal  of  approbation  upon  the  mind's  creation. 
Again,  art  makes  use  of  much  that  is  conventional 
and  traditional.  There  are  so-called  laws  govern- 
ing the  fiats  of  taste,  so  that  the  artist  accepts 
only  such  images  as  fall  into  accord  with  these 
laws.  There  are  symbols  and  representations — 
as  Ruskin's  classical  griffin — accepted  by  usage 
and  reproduced  in  compliance  with  convention, 
'  Modern  Painters,  Part  IV.,  ch.  viii. 


122     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

and  these  are  only  memory  images  more  or  less 
acclimated  to  the  artist's  mind  by  his  professional 
education.  Association  also :  whatever  symbol 
or  theme — Cross  or  Madonna — has  become  widely 
familiar  in  connection  with  art  gains  an  intrinsic 
power  of  aesthetic  appeal  independent  of  the  art- 
ist's imagination;  it  is  taken  into  the  language 
of  art  and  interprets  for  the  imagination  in  the 
same  way  that  words  interpret  thought.  But  all 
these  are  social  aids  to  imaginative  expression ; 
by  themselves  they  cannot  produce  art,  and 
too  strenuously  emphasised  they  stultif)^  artistic 
achievement,  as  Egyptian  art  was  stultified  and 
as  every  art  must  be  which  is  withed  by  a  puis- 
sant tradition.  Artistic  virility  is  measured 
wholly  by  the  vitality  of  the  imagination,  by  its 
power  to  grow  and  produce  new  life. 

This  power  to  grow  is  what  distinguishes  the 
imaginative  image.  The  memory  image  is  like  a 
fossil  cast  of  the  living  perception  it  seeks  to 
perpetuate.  It  may  alter  as  time  passes,  but  its 
alteration  is  only  the  slow  wearing  away  of  the 
shallower  particles,  the  bony  framework  is  always 
the  same.  The  conscious  mark  of  the  memory 
image,  token  of  its  stability,  is  recognition;  it  is 
perceived  as  a  reproduction  of  some  former  per- 
ception. But  the  imaginative  image  is  a  new 
perception,  not  to  be  distinguished  from  percep- 
tions given  through  the  senses  except  in  its  origin. 
And  like  sense-perceptions  it  always  comes  before 
the  mind  as  appearance,  apparition.     I  do  not 


The  Imagination  123 

mean  that  it  seems  unreal;  it  is  as  real  as  external 
things  appear  to  be  ;  but  it  comes  with  an  exter- 
nality like  to  theirs  and  is  to  be  passively  observed 
as  they  are  passively  seen.  It  grows  and  changes 
before  the  mind's  eye  with  the  same  freedom  that 
they  grow  and  change  before  the  physical  eye.  In 
short,  the  imaginative  image  is  always  spontane- 
ous, whether  its  unveilment  be  slow  and  tentative 
or  whether  it  spring  into  being  full-formed  like 
Athena  from  the  head  of  Zeus. 

Brief  reflection  shows  the  limitations  of  will  in 
the  governing  of  imagination.  It  is  a  common- 
place of  psychology  that  volitional  effort  must  be 
directed  to  some  definite  end,  that  there  must  be 
a  representation  of  the  act  to  be  performed,  a  pre- 
feeling  of  it,  before  the  muscles  may  yield  to  de- 
sire; the  willed  end  must  be  understood  before  it 
can  be  willed.  Now  aesthetic  understanding  is 
not  possible  apart  from  aesthetic  representation, 
for  it  is  the  nature  of  the  beautiful  to  be  embodied, 
to  be  an  embodiment ;  and  consequently  it  is  quite 
absurd  to  speak  of  willing  the  creation  of  any 
beauty.  Beauty  can  exist  as  an  object  of  desire 
only  as  already  fashioned  in  conception,  and  its 
creation  could  be  willed  only  if  it  were  pre-repre- 
sented  to  the  mind.  Beauty  alone  can  be  the 
cause  —  Aristotle's  Formal  Cause  —  of  beauty 
desired. 

Of  course  this  dogmatism  should  be  modified. 
The  artist  can  will  the  fleshly  incarnation  of  the 
beauty  which  is  his  vision,  and  the  beauty  itself 


124     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

maj'-  grow  under  his  hand  and  blossom  into  un- 
foreseen possibiHties.  Neither  is  it  altogether 
sure  that  every  volition  must  be  as  definitely  fore- 
ordained as  the  psychologists  deem.  Just  as  we 
may  will  a  diffused  muscular  tension,  an  attitude 
of  expectancy  or  readiness  for  shock  or  effort  not 
clearly  foreseen,  so  may  we  will  attitudes  of  mind 
and  readiness  to  receive  impressions  of  certain 
casts.  We  may,  as  we  sometimes  put  it,  adopt 
the  judicial  or  the  appreciative  mood,  focalise  the 
mind's  eye  for  certain  atmospheres,  deafen  the 
mind's  ear  to  all  save  certain  sounds,  and  so  fix 
aesthetic  sympathies  or  repulsions.  But  in  any 
case  the  volitional  control  is  not  more  than  as- 
sumption of  attitude,  a  determination  to  hold  and 
use  all  impressions  that  satisfy  the  instinct  of  taste 
or  the  feeling  of  need. 

To  be  sure  the  need  may  be  of  the  most  circum- 
scribed sort  :  a  picture  must  fill  a  lunette  in  a 
difficult  light  so  as  to  satisfy  the  gaze  from  differ- 
ent directions,  a  portrait  must  be  painted,  or  an 
equestrian  statue  modelled.  In  each  of  these 
cases  the  artist's  skill  and  training  are  brought 
into  highest  requisition  and  his  knowledge  of 
what  is  fitting  and  necessary  is  subjected  to  fore- 
seen ends.  But  technique  is  always  subject  to  will. 
It  is  capable  of  being  reduced  to  rule,  rationalised, 
and  consequently  its  purposes  may  at  any  time 
be  mentally  represented  and  willed.  But  there  is 
an  utter  gap  between  technique  and  imagination, 
The  latter  may  and  must  aid  in  the  development 


The  Imagination  125 

of  technique,  as  in  its  inception  each  technical  de- 
parture is  a  discovery,  wrought  into  the  art  only 
by  dint  of  imagination.  And  so,  while  the  will 
may  set  the  mind  in  receptive  posture,  while  in- 
stincts of  taste  may  accept  or  reject,  and  intelli- 
gence may  analyse,  only  the  synthetic  activity  of 
imagination  can  enable  any  veritable  art ;  the 
imagination  alone  creates. 

We  may,  then,  characterise  imaginative  im- 
agery as  spontaneous  mental  embodhncnts  of  seiisit- 
ous  elements  so  synthesised  as  to  possess  an  organic 
unity  not  to  be  distinguished  from  the  unities  of  real 
things.  Such  imagery  may  be  rational,  leading 
to  ends  determined  by  utility  or  truth  and  so  held 
subject  to  experimental  verification  and  the  assent 
of  logical  judgments;  or  it  maybe  aesthetic, 
having  only  to  satisfy  the  requirements  of  the 
sense  of  beauty.  Images  of  each  type  may  enter 
into  artistic  creation,  but  the  logical  need  is  there 
subordinate  and  the  fiats  of  logical  judgment  are 
confined  mainly  to  matters  of  technique ;  the 
aesthetic  sense  pronounces  upon  the  adequacy  of 
the  expression. 

I  have  stated  that  while  all  sensuous  imagery 
belongs  to  the  realm  of  mental  appearances,  that 
imagery  which  may  be  discriminated  as  imagina- 
tive involves  in  itself  imaginative  synthesis  and 
so  is  immediate  exemplification  of  the  mind's 
action.  But  such  activity  is  not  a  laboured  ac- 
tivity, nor,  except  in  the  vaguer  sense,  can  it  be 


126     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

conceived  to  be  volitional.  All  that  the  will  can 
do  is  to  direct  attention  or  influence  sympathies ; 
the  whole  mental  attitude  toward  imaginative  pro- 
duction is  receptive;  and  even  while  the  imagina- 
tion works,  its  working  motive  and  movement 
seem  alien.  It  is  as  if  consciousness  were  be- 
come dual :  on  the  one  hand,  the  aesthetic  and 
logical  understandings  sit  in  judgment  while  the 
will,  in  a  sort  of  policing  capacity,  centres  atten- 
tion upon  the  issue;  on  the  other,  the  imagination 
displays  its  achievements,  or  magically  evolves  its 
wonders  under  the  eyes  of  the  judges.  We  may 
thus  occasionally  get  glimpses  of  the  process, 
though  perforce  our  glimpses  are  always  of  an 
already  embodied  vitality;  we  have  no  sense  fine 
enough  to  enable  us  to  discover  the  moving 
spirit  within  the  wrought  creation.  So  it  is  that 
creatures  of  the  imagination  (as  we  are  prone  to 
call  them,  knowing  that  they  live  full  and  inde- 
pendent lives),  though  they  be  born  within  our 
own  minds  and  are  of  all  things  nearest  to  our 
sympathies  and  understanding,  are  still  always 
seen  from  the  outside  ;  they  are  never  really  us,  we 
are  only  judges  and  onlookers.  This  internal  ob- 
jectification  of  mental  processes  which  are  natur- 
ally the  most  intimately  connected  with  individual 
character  and  personality  is  one  of  the  strangest 
anomalies  in  human  experience.  It  shows  how 
self-consciousness  attaches  itself  to  the  more  su- 
perficial mental  factors,  while  those  which  create 
character  are  freest  from  its  narrowing  influence. 


The  Imagination  127 

And  here  we  have  the  psychical  raison  d'etre  of 
that  typic  and  ideal  quality  of  beauty  which  ex- 
alts it  above  self-desire  and  makes  self-immolation 
necessary  to  its  attainment,  though  at  the  same 
time  it  reveals  what  is  most  native  to  the  mind 
that  conceived  it. 

But  the  nature  of  this  internal  duality  is  not 
our  immediate  concern.  Here  it  is  necessary  to 
examine  but  the  one  phase  —  objectifi cation  of 
sensuous  imageries. 

Suggestion  (evasive  as  the  term  may  be)  must 
be  conceived  as  the  occasioning  cause  of  imagina- 
tive embodiments  as  they  are  ordinarily  brought 
forth.  Suggestion  is  most  inevitable  in  sense- 
perceptions  of  the  beautiful,  the  actual  work  of 
art,  the  actual  landscape.  The  beauty  perceived 
is  as  objective  as  anything  can  be,  inhering  in  the 
perceived  object  as  a  quality  or  fashion  of  it,  in 
no  wise  to  be  eradicated  or  abstracted  save  the 
object  be  destroyed.  Thus  the  beauty  of  the  Ve- 
nus of  Milo  is  inalienably  embalmed  in  the  mar- 
ble image,  and  is  as  objectively  certain  as  the 
substance  of  the  stone.  And  yet  that  beauty  is 
purely  psychical  creation — not  only  once,  in  the 
first  conception  and  carving,  but  in  every  percep- 
tion of  the  statue  which  sees  it  beautiful.  Ap- 
preciation is  a  kind  of  imaginative  creation.  It 
is  always  the  soul  that  sees  beauty,  and  the  see- 
ing is  a  making.  However  inseparable  from  the 
marble  form,  the  beauty  is  none  the  less  wrought 
and  added  in  the  perception. 


128'    Poetiy  and  the  Individual 

When  the  beauty  perceived  belongs  to  a  purely 
mental  image  its  case  is  not  altered.  One  might 
have,  for  example,  a  memory  image  of  the  Venus 
of  Milo,  which  would  still  be  an  embodiment  of 
its  charm,  and  simultaneous  with  the  suggestion. 
But  in  creative  imagination  in  narrower  sense, 
as  distinguished  from  appreciation,  there  is  not 
the  same  co-instancy  of  suggestion  and  presenta- 
tion. There  is  a  gap  of  greater  or  less  duration 
between  the  reception  of  the  suggestive  occasion 
and  its  embodiment  in  imagery.  The  suggestion 
received  (unconsciously,  perhaps),  there  ensues 
a  period  of  growth  which  may  result  in  an  ap- 
pearance only  remotely  akin  to  the  first  hint  of  it. 
Often,  indeed,  no  connection  is  to  be  traced  except 
to  the  most  general  elements  of  sensuous  experi- 
ence; and  especially  is  this  so  where  the  image 
first  appears  wholly  developed,  springing  into 
existence  in  full  maturity.  Images  such  as 
haunted  the  mind  of  William*Blake,  never  grow- 
ing under  the  eyes,  but  always  coming  as  appari- 
tions, are  to  be  connected  with  the  mind's  sense 
acquisitions  only  by  the  most  tenuous  resem- 
blances; the  likeness  which  they  bear  never  was 
in  earth  nor  sky.  In  such  images  the  element 
of  suggestion  seems  most  remote,  the  power  of 
creation  highest;  yet  the  attitude  of  consciousness 
toward  them  is  still  passive  perception,  as  Blake 
himself  testifies.' 

'  Consult  William  Blake,  His  Life,  Character,  and 
Genius,  by  Alfred  Story  (1893). 


The  Imagination  129 

Mental  images  are  of  many  intensities.  They 
range  from  fleetingly  dim  glimpses  and  catch- 
notes  to  the  authoritative  externality  of  hallucina- 
tion and  daemonic  possession.  Professor  James 
distinguishes  three  grades  of  imagery :  halluci- 
nation, which  is  pathologically  caused,  pseudo- 
hallucination,  and  ordinary  imagery.  "  From 
ordinary  images  of  memory  and  fancy,  pseudo- 
hallucinations  di£fer  in  being  much  more  vivid, 
minute,  detailed,  steady,  abrupt,  and  spontane- 
ous, in  the  sense  that  all  feeling  of  our  own  ac- 
tivity in  producing  them  is  lacking";  further  — 
and  here  they  differ  from  imaginative  images — 
they  are  "  projected  outwards,"  though  they 
"  lack  the  character  of  objective  reality  "  which 
belongs  to  true  hallucinations. ' 

It  is  diflBcult  to  procure  a  good  test  of  projec- 
tion of  imagery, —  interference  with  the  field  of 
physical  vision  is  perhaps  the  best, —  but  in  any 
case  the  matter  is  not  of  great  moment  to  the 
student  of  imaginative  process;  images  of  the 
memory  and  of  fancy  are  projected  with  equal 
facility.  Nor  are  intensity  and  vividness  depend- 
ent on  projection;  the  non-projected  image  is 
likely  to  be  more  luminous  and  detailed  than  the 
projected.  Blake,  we  know,  was  accustomed  to 
draw  as  from  a  model  images  which  he  carefully 
distinguished  from  such  as  are  seen  by  the  bodily 
eye,  and  which  he  characterised  as  "  infinitely 
more  perfect  and  more  minutely  organised  "  than 

'Wm.  James,  Psychology^  chap.  "Imagination." 
9 


I30     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

anything  seen  by  mortal  vision.'  The  point  of 
interest  in  projected  imagery  is  not  enhanced 
vividness  but  enhanced  objectivity.  It  is  given 
a  place  in  the  real  world  and  seems  to  belong  to 
the  nature  of  external  things.  Thus  Blake  him- 
self, when  his  mind's  creation  was  projected  con- 
ceived it  to  be  a  "  ghost";  and  in  the  field  of 
audition — where  projection  is  relatively  likelier 
because  of  the  inferior  localising  power  of  the  ear 
— we  have  Socrates  guided  by  daemonic  voices, 
saints  whispering  her  mission  to  Joan  of  Arc. 
This  external  fulness  seems  to  carry  a  conviction 
of  aesthetic  independence  which  in  art  may  lead  to 
a  slighting  of  detail,  a  tendency  toward  impres- 
sionism, not  apt  to  be  indulged  in  by  the  artist 
of  no  less  vivid  imagination  who  sees,  as  did 
Blake,  wholly  with  the  mental  eye.  There  is  a 
nearness  of  kinship  between  the  projected  image 
and  actual  perception  which  seems  to  imply  the 
like  efiiciency  of  suggestion,  and  the  artist's  less 
need  for  painstaking  incarnation  of  his  ideal. 

Apart  from  their  differences  with  reference  to 
intensity  or  projection  there  are  differences  of 
imageries  with  reference  to  type,  that  is,  as  coming 
under  the  forms  of  the  different  senses.  So  pro- 
nounced are  individual  bents  in  this  respect  that 
M.  Charcot  made  a  widely  followed  classification 
of  minds  as  visual,  auditory,  or  motor,  according 
to  the  predominant  form  of  imaginative  pre- 
sentation; and  thence  Professor  James  infers  that 
'Story,  op.  ciL,  p.  54. 


The  Imagination  131 

**  there  are  imaginations,  not  'the  Imagination,'  " 
— a  view  naturally  growing  out  of  the  notion  that 
imagination  is  only  a  facult)^  of  mental  imagery. 
Later  analyses  —  notably  M,  Ribot's  —  stress  the 
importance  of  the  underlying  activity;  but  it  is 
none  the  less  evident  that  in  few  individuals  are 
the  various  types  of  sensuous  development  equally 
developed.  In  art,  a  bent  for  music  is  conse- 
quence of  auditory  imagery,  painting  results  from 
lively  visualisation,  while  it  is  hardly  to  be 
doubted  that  the  sculptor's  equipment  must  in- 
clude vivid  motor  imagery  (feelings  of  action  and 
poise)  as  well  as  visual  instinct.  Poetry,  more 
than  any  other  art,  demands  interweaving  of 
sense  suggestion,  and  hence  on  the  part  of  the 
poet  a  more  catholic  imagination.  But  even 
among  poets  there  is  marked  variation :  Tennyson 
is  pre-eminent  for  visual  power,  while  Swinburne 
and  Poe  are  implacably  auditory;  Browning's 
strength  lies  on  the  ideational  side,  while  Keats 
has  equal  facility  for  visual  brilliancy  and  insist- 
ent harmony,  with  imagery  of  smell  and  taste 
and  touch  also  enriching  the  texture  of  his 
thought. 

But  whatever  else  the  poet's  aptitude,  he  must 
not  be  deficient  in  verbal  imagination.  M.  Ribot 
added  to  Charcot's  classification  a  fourth  type  of 
imagery — the  "  typographical  visual."  Doubt- 
less this  is  too  narrow  a  generalisation  of  verbal 
power,  for  while  in  this  age  of  interminable 
reading,  facility  in  thinking  in  printed  words  is 


132    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

abnormally  developed,  still  to  many  minds  verbal 
presentations  are  characteristically  auditory, —  as 
before  the  days  of  the  press  must  have  been  the 
general  rule.  But  the  peculiarity  of  verbal  im- 
agery lies  not  in  the  fact  that  words  are  mentally 
seen  or  heard,  but  in  the  fact  that  thought  comes 
into  being  in  its  appropriate  expression  in  lan- 
guage ;  and  hence  upon  the  verve  and  vitality  of 
such  imagery  must  depend  the  power  of  right  ex- 
pression. Tennyson,  conceding  Browning's  in- 
tellectual effectiveness,  found  him  lacking  ' '  the 
glory  of  words";  and  it  is  pertinent  to  ask  just 
what  was  intended.  Browning  certainly  suffered 
from  no  straitness  of  vocabulary,  nor  was  he  want- 
ing in  verbal  accuracy  or  vividness  ;  and  heedless 
as  he  often  was,  he  could  use  the  instrument  of 
language  for  sense- appeal  as  efifectively  as  any 
poet,  whether  for  music  or  painting,  when  the 
effort  seemed  worth  while.  Yet  there  was  effort; 
his  best  expression  seldom  seems  utterly  spon- 
taneous; it  is  laboured,  wrought.  The  instinct 
for  the  word  is  wanting. 

The  ' '  glory  of  words ' '  I  take  to  be  but  a  poeti- 
cal paraphrase  of  the  "  gift  of  language"  or  the 
"  happy  phrase."  In  its  extreme  possession  it  is 
likely  to  induce  euphuistic  extravagances,  verbal 
virtuosities,  or  the  rhapsodical  utterance  of  the 
improvisatore;  but  tempered  with  imaginative 
sanity  it  is  the  gift  that  makes  poets,  and  at  its 
best  enables  that  Shakespearian  inevitability  of 
expression  wherein  the  phrase  seems  alive  with 


The  Imagination  133 

the  very  soul  of  the  ideal  significance.  Much  of 
the  finer  charm  of  poetry  is  charm  of  phrase  —  a 
charm  so  inalienable  as  to  make  translation  for- 
ever futile.  The  poet's  style  is  a  part  of  himself 
and  his  language  is  a  main  element  of  his  style. 
The  word  is  as  literal  an  embodiment  of  his  im- 
aginative life  as  any  other  form  of  imagery,  and 
is  as  inseparable  an  element  of  the  beauty  he 
creates.  There  may  be  poetry  beautiful  by  rea- 
son of  its  thought  or  mood  or  picturing,  but  the 
golden  perfection  is  only  possible  when  poetic  in- 
spiration extends  to  the  "  glory  of  words." 

In  turning  from  this  discussion  of  imagery,  we 
should  not  overlook  that  all  imaginative  presenta- 
tion, whether  vision  or  word  or  musical  note,  is 
only  expression  of  the  underlying  activity.  It  is, 
as  Aristotle  has  it,  imitation, —  more  exactly, 
symbolisation  of  the  spirit  that  creates  it.  "  It  is 
not  alone  the  character  and  the  secret  of  things 
that  is  made  manifest  to  us  in  a  work  of  art," 
says  M.  Cherbuliez,  "it  is  also  the  character  of 
the  artist.  He  cannot  imitate  without  translat- 
ing, nor  translate  without  interpreting,  and  the 
interpretation  is  a  labour  of  thought  in  which  the 
self  reveals  itself. ' '  '  Yet  the  revelation  is  never 
verisimilitude,  the  imitation  never  reproduction; 
it  is  symbolical  in  the  most  abstruse  sense,  it  is 
borrowed  symbolism.  Through  the  imagination 
the  soul  seizes  upon  elements  of  sensuous  experi- 
ence to  weave  allegories  of  its  own  innermost 
'  VArt  et  la  Nature  (1892),  p.  46, 


134    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

existence.  For  the  most  part  these  allegories  are 
presented  to  us  with  the  strange  abruptness  of  the 
imaginative  image ;  but  at  times  (and  I  think  this 
characterises  the  higher  evolution  of  conscious- 
ness) the  veil  is  partially  lifted  and  the  creative 
process  partially  revealed  to  us.  As  deep  fogs 
are  rent  by  sudden  winds  to  unguessed  vistas  of 
sea,  so  the  liminal  mists  of  consciousness  are  cleft, 
showing  in  the  haunted  Hiyitcrland  of  life  strange 
prenatal  ghosts,  prophetic  in  the  womb  of  Time; 
and  these  are  the  artist's  vision. 

II.  Ideational  Elements. —  Doubtless  the  most 
prosaic  mind  that  ever  attempted  the  Icarian 
altitudes  of  metaphysics  was  that  of  Sir  William 
Hamilton;  but  his  lack  of  finer  sensibility  sharp- 
ened his  perception  of  the  more  primitive  aesthetic 
qualities,  and  so  he  has  noted  that  the  unity, 
orderliness,  and  consistency  of  a  carefully  wrought 
logical  analysis  seemed  to  him  more  beautiful 
than  painting  or  poetry.  The  logical  value  and 
psychological  inevitability  of  that  passion  for 
unity  which  is  an  ineradicable  whim  of  the 
human  mind  is  ancient  commonplace.  Equally 
commonplace  is  aesthetic  insistence  upon  the  need 
for  organic  unity  in  the  aesthetic  object, —  unity 
in  variety,  harmony,  balance,  symmetry,  propor- 
tion. Fundamentally  the  two  unities  satisfy  the 
same  requirement  of  mind;  though  if  either  is 
predominant,  it  is  perhaps  the  aesthetical  rather 
than  the  rational, — unity  is  far  more  characteristic 
of  beauty  than  of  fact.     "  The  romance  of  the 


The  Imagination  135 

philosopher,  a  metaphysical  hypothesis,  is  some- 
times the  highest  class  of  fiction,"  writes  M. 
Guyau;  and  when  Professor  Ward  caustically  in- 
sinuates that  Herbert  Spencer  should  have  put 
his  ' '  epic  of  creation  ' '  into  blank  verse,  he  pays 
tribute  to  the  aesthetical  value  of  the  logical  unity 
that  has  made  so  prolific  the  appeal  of  Spencer's 
cosmogenesis.  The  augustness  of  science  is  of 
like  character:  the  sciences  appeal  to  imagination 
by  reason  of  their  stable  unities,  and  we  measure 
the  perfection  of  any  science  by  the  fewness  and 
simplicity  of  its  working  concepts.  There  is,  of 
course,  a  utilitarian  cause  for  this.  The  passion 
for  unity  (most  contradictory  and  amazing  of  all 
mental  appetites,  for  the  world  is  infinitely  vari- 
ous) is  to  be  accounted  for  as  the  outcome  of  the 
age-long  necessity  for  discrimination  and  choice  ; 
even  the  protozoan  must  divine  what  is  food  from 
what  is  wholly  foreign  to  its  need,  and  in  this 
divination  we  have  the  beginning  of  the  evolution 
of  Kant's  '  unity  of  apperception.'  Nor  in  the 
most  abstruse  flights  of  metaphysic  do  we  out- 
grow the  utilitarian  need  for  unification:  it  is 
decreed  by  the  limitations  of  our  intelligence 
that  the  body  of  our  knowledge  shall  be  service- 
able in  proportion  to  the  total  effectiveness  of  its 
organisation. 

Yet  the  manner  of  evolution  of  any  quality  does 
not  define  its  character.  The  seed  is  a  far  cause 
of  the  flower,  but  the  flower  is  none  the  less  new 
creation  of  each  April  sun.     So  with  the  mind's 


136     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

flowering:  the  utilitarian  need  (always  the  need 
for  survival)  is  outgrown  and  with  the  finer  evo- 
lution new  needs  are  acquired.  Such  is  the 
need  for  unity  and  harmony,  which  in  becoming 
aesthetic  ceases  to  be  utilitarian.  As  a  funda- 
mental characteristic  of  all  mental  life,  it  helps  to 
form  aesthetic  standards,  and  it  also  shows  the 
basal  contact  of  aesthetic  and  rational  experience. 
In  naked  abstraction,  as  pure  form,  it  must  be 
conceived  as  idea;  thence,  in  imagination,  as  the 
ideational  element  underlying  all  aesthetic  con- 
struction. But  in  this  new  character  it  has 
nothing  in  common  with  utilitarian  need. 

Yet  in  passing  from  logical  to  aesthetical  domi- 
nation the  demand  for  unity  undergoes  certain 
evolution.  The  logical  unit  is  relatively  simple; 
aesthetic  unity  stresses  the  variety  within  the 
whole, —  organic  complexity  is  a  sine  qua  non  of 
art.  The  very  terms  which  designate  aesthetic 
unities  —  harmony,  proportion,  balance,  sym- 
metry,—  imply  the  reciprocal  need  for  variety 
within  the  unity.  Some  of  these  qualities  may 
have  had  utilitarian  origin, —  symmetry  harking 
back  to  architectural  stability,  balance  to  the 
poise  of  living  organisms  and  so  beautiful  as  life 
is  beautiful;  but  the  main  explanation  is  the  syn- 
thetic nature  of  imaginative  activit5^  Synthesis 
means  a  uniting  of  elements  previously  diverse; 
its  very  definition  is  production  of  unity  in  variety; 
and  so,  in  the  character  of  imagination  itself  is 
grounded  the  prime  canon  of  aesthetics. 


The  Imagination  137 

Logic  emphasises  the  monistic  aspect  of  unity, 
its  sameness,  identity;  art  the  harmony  of  the 
internal  structure.  The  reason  is  that  logic  is 
primarily  an  instrument  for  classification  and  the 
detection  of  resemblances,  while  art  as  imitation 
of  life  is  best  characterised  as  a  harmony  or  equi- 
librium of  elements  whose  disruption  results  in 
death.  The  harmonised  elements  thence  assume 
the  quality  of  metaphor  and  all  art  becomes  an 
allegory  of  life.  There  is  a  kind  of  vital  move- 
ment seemingly  necessary  to  every  effective  aes- 
thetic impression.  This  movement  is  limited  by 
the  unity  of  apperception, —  the  reach  of  our  ap- 
prehension of  complex  wholes, —  but  it  possesses 
a  native  energy  which  renders  imagination  ca- 
pable, at  the  white  heat  of  inspiration,  of  fusing 
the  most  discordant  elements  of  experience.  It  is 
through  such  fusions  that  human  experience  is 
enlarged. 

The  different  arts  in  varying  degree  emphasise 
one  or  the  other  formal  element, — the  unity  or  the 
variety.  Painting  gains  its  effect  through  a  single 
vivid  impression,  and  its  unities  are  of  the  most 
insistent  type.  Music,  being  compelled  to  build 
up  its  effects  through  temporal  series,  lays  the 
burden  upon  harmony;  apprehension  of  plan  is 
necessary  to  appreciation  of  it,  and  the  plan  is  ac- 
cordingly more  easily  abstracted  than  in  case  of 
plastic  art.  At  the  same  time,  final  appreciation 
of  any  musical  composition  depends  upon  the 
persistence,  throughout  its  temporal  extent,  of 


138     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

liminal  echoes  and  prophecies  of  the  sensuous 
context,  for  when  the  gaunt  plan  alone  is  retained 
we  have  naught  but  schematism  barren  of  aesthetic 
quality.  And  this  leads  us  to  note  that  harmony- 
is  not  merely  a  reciprocal  of  unity.  Harmonic 
blendings  of  sensuous  elements,  whether  colours, 
curves,  or  musical  sounds,  and  harmonic  consis- 
tency of  ideas,  possess  an  intrinsic  formal  charm 
which  has  nothing  to  do  with  the  demand  for 
unity.  Doubtless  all  harmonies  prevent  uncom- 
fortable jostlings  of  the  attention  and  so  aid  ap- 
perceptional  unity,  but  they  are  endowed  beside 
with  a  subtler  charm  due  to  the  vital  force  of  the 
fused  elements,  which  is  the  life  of  the  metaphor. 
We  perceive  this  most  clearly  in  literary  art. 
Take,  for  example,  the  almost  syllogistic  neces- 
sity of  lyric  forms — the  ode,  the  sonnet,  the  song. 
Each  is  a  movement,  a  growth,  conditioned  and 
evolved  by  the  interplay  of  poetic  element;  each 
is  an  ideal  pattern,  but  a  pattern  demanding  com- 
plete embodiment  for  its  least  comprehension. 
Beauty  can  never  be  anything  but  concrete,  even 
when  it  is  an  ideal  and  a  type.  The  final  touch- 
stone of  artistic  fusion,  our  assent,  is  evidence  of 
this,  for  that  assent  is  alwaj^s  a  recognition  of  the 
harmonic  fulness  of  the  ideal, — of  its  comfortable 
fit  to  our  mind  and  need,  if  I  may  so  speak. 
' '  There  is  a  model  of  charm  and  of  beauty  which 
consists  in  a  certain  rapport  between  our  nature 
such  as  it  is  and  the  thing  which  pleases  us,  so 
that  whatever  is  formed  upon  that  model  satis- 


The  Imagination  139 

fies."  Likely  it  is  not  easy  to  get  at  the  gist  of 
what  Pascal  here  designates,  but  if  we  find  it  any- 
where in  art  it  is  in  dramatic  portrayal  of  char- 
acter. Art  is  '  imitation  of  life  ' — the  symbol, 
the  metaphor,  the  ideal  embodiment  of  life.  Now 
the  conceptual  harmony  which  makes  a  life  a  life, 
a  personality  a  personality,  is  not  the  same  as  the 
conceptual  harmony  limited  by  the  unity  of  ap- 
perception; it  is  far  more  complex  and  difiBcult — 
too  complex  and  difficult  for  any  present  solution. 
But  it  may  be  worth  while  to  note,  as  implication 
of  the  difference,  that  in  adequate  dramatic  art 
the  created  personality  is  always  projected  beyond 
the  boundaries  of  the  play's  unities.  We  tremble 
at  the  whole  stormy  reign  of  Lear  and  guess 
the  baleful  auguries  of  his  birth;  we  speculate 
the  keen  youth  of  Hamlet,  and  diagnose  the 
long  poisonings  of  Shy  lock's  soul.  Perhaps  the 
strangest  fore-creation  of  any  tragedy  is  the  life 
of  Orgilus  in  the  Broken  Heart ;  he  comes  to  us 
as  the  instrument  of  the  play's  Nemesis,  a  very 
charnel  of  ancient  woes  which  it  is  ours  to  live 
again;  we  must  see  him  come  to  be  what  he  is, 
before  we  can  comprehend  the  tragic  culmination. 
Insight,  we  call  this  power  of  imagination,  in- 
sight into  human  nature,  into  world  nature.  Its 
test  is  accord  of  the  artistic  creation  with  the 
model  or  ideal  which  our  experience  creates  for 
us — our  power  of  sympathy.  That  sympathy  is 
for  life  as  a  whole — be  it  strait  or  broad, —  and 
so  demands  truth  with  beauty.     But  the  truth  is 


I40     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

always  falsified,  as  the  beauty  is  always  lost, 
when  we  try  to  present  it  in  purely  ideational 
terms.  We  say  that  Rubens  painted  fleshly 
animality,  that  the  yEneid  is  an  exaltation  of 
Rome;  but  in  each  case  our  logical  judgment  im- 
poverishes what  it  designates ;  we  seem  to  have 
simplified  where  all  we  have  done  is  to  rob  by 
abstraction.  The  reality  and  the  whole  truth  is 
in  the  direct  effect  of  the  work  of  art,  which  is  its 
only  possible  explanation.  Art,  as  the  life  it  imi- 
tates, exists  only  as  vital  fusion,  organic  harmony. 
However,  there  is  some  ground  for  the  oft- as- 
sertion of  the  identity  of  truth  and  beauty.  The 
synthetic  activity  of  imagination  is  the  same  in 
both  rational  and  aesthetic  experience.  Stripped 
of  all  other  characteristics  truth  here  coincides 
with  beauty  and  the  logical  symbolisation  of  life 
in  definition  is  on  a  par  with  assthetical  symboli- 
sation in  imitation.  Of  course  the  logical  symbol 
is  the  poorer  and  less  adequate,  but  in  compensa- 
tion it  is  the  more  easily  understood.  That  is  a 
factor  of  its  utility  and  the  beginning  of  its  differ- 
entiation from  the  beautiful;  what  makes  truth 
true  is  its  adaptation  to  conceptual  needs,  espe- 
cially where  we  are  dealing  with  an  independent 
Nature;  but  what  makes  beauty  beautiful  is  free- 
dom from  any  save  ideal  necessities.  And  here 
where  they  are  distinguished  in  definition  truth 
and  beauty  conflict;  in  their  intrinsic  characters 
they  cannot  possibly  be  identical.  Only  that 
which  they  represent  in  common  can  bring  them 


The  Imagination  141 

together,  and  that  is  life.  But  truth  represents 
real  life,  while  beauty  represents  that  which  is 
ideal,  and  it  is  seldom  enough  in  finite  experience 
that  the  real  and  the  ideal  coincide. 

III.  Emotional  Elements. — In  limited  space  it 
is  well-nigh  hopeless  to  attempt  any  adequate 
analysis  of  the  emotional  elements  of  imagination; 
the  field  is  too  opaquely  befogged  to  permit  an 
intelligible  general  view;  it  deserves  thorough 
exploration  and  careful  mapping,  unfortunately 
not  ours  to  achieve.  There  are  three  main  reasons 
for  the  condition :  the  wholly  unsatisfactory  state 
of  the  psychology  of  emotion,  the  discord  of  com- 
mon notions  of  the  value  and  office  of  emotional 
life,  and  in  aesthetics  the  existence  of  traditional 
interpretations  introducing  constant  bias  into  the 
subject. 

We  may  merely  deplore  the  backwardness  of  the 
psychology  of  emotion,  but  the  second  reason — dis- 
cord of  common  notions — requires  consideration. 
It  is  concerned  with  the  significance  of  the  play 
of  emotion  in  life  as  a  whole  and  exerts  profound 
influence  upon  estimations  of  the  emotional  life 
of  the  imagination.  There  are  to  be  noted  two 
main  and  opposing  conceptions  of  this  signifi- 
cance. Both  are  ethical;  the  first,  wholly  subjec- 
tive, has  already  been  partially  discussed  in  the 
section  on  ' '  The  Pre-eminence  of  Beauty."  It  is 
the  view  which  conceives  pleasure  and  pain  to 
be  the  measure  and  test  of  the  worth  of  life.  Ac- 
tion is  valued  for  its  power  to  produce  desirable 


142     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

emotion,  and  emotion  is  conceived  as  motive  to 
action,  in  the  strictest  teleological  sense, — stress  is 
laid  upon  the  emotional  ratification,  the  pleasure 
won,  not  at  all  upon  emotion  conceived  as  unfore- 
seeing  impulse;  it  is  the  desired  bliss,  never  the 
effort  which  desire  causes,  that  is  thought  to  be 
important. 

In  contrast,  the  objective  conception.  Here  the 
whole  emotional  series — the  desire  and  its  satis- 
faction, the  ache  and  the  bliss, — is  valued  for  the 
activity  engendered.  The  purpose  of  emotion 
and  the  test  of  value  is  the  general  welfare  of  the 
organism.  Evolutional  theory,  taking  this  view, 
gauges  emotion  relative  to  preservation  of  life; 
and  accordingly  classifies  emotions  as  attractive 
and  repellent,  —  the  former,  as  hunger,  love, 
pleasure,  leading  to  beneficent  (preservative)  ac- 
tivities, the  latter,  as  fear  or  pain,  impelling 
avoidance  of  danger.  In  every  case  emotion  is 
interpreted  as  impulse  to  action  and  valued  for  its 
service  to  vital  welfare. 

It  will  be  seen  that  the  opposition  of  these  views 
is  the  immemorial  opposition  of  hedonism  with 
the  ideal  of  a  socially  effective  or  of  a  sane  and 
proportional  life.  Each  view  has  profoundly  in- 
fluenced estimates  of  aesthetic  emotions.  On  the 
one  hand  is  the  palpable  hedonism  of  the  wide- 
spread notion  that  the  o£&ce  of  art  is  to  give 
pleasure.  But  it  is  a  conception  of  social  effect- 
iveness that  prompts  Professor  James'  objection 
to  the  vague  play  of  incipient  feeling  which  music 


The  Imagination  143 

occasions.  Music,  he  avers,  awakens  impulses 
to  action  without  giving  them  practical  direction 
and  object;  consequently  there  is  created  a  habit 
of  non-reaction  which  on  the  occasion  of  honestly 
ethical  stimuli  permits  only  emotional  dissipation 
where  should  be  that  aggressive  activity  which  is 
his  ideal. 

It  is  odd  that  Aristotle  should  have  found  the 
raison  d'Stre  of  an  entire  branch  of  art — tragedy 
— in  the  ver}^  quality  which  Professor  James  de- 
plores. The  function  of  tragedy,  Aristotle  held, 
is  purification  or  purgation  of  the  tragic  emotions': 
stimulation  of  pity  and  terror  by  tragic  art  affords 
an  appropriate  and  agreeable  outlet  for  potential 
extremes  of  feeling;  the  man  whose  pity  has  been 
stirred  by  noble  tragedy  will  understand  himself 
better  and  life  better,  be  a  safer  and  saner  citizen, 
less  likely  to  give  way  under  stress  of  misfortune; 
he  will  have  undergone  an  emotional  katharsis 
and  have  become  a  healthier  individual.  The 
rationale  of  this  view  is  a  preconception  of  gene- 
ral welfare — the  Greek  ideal  of  temperance  and 
sanity.  The  sane  man,  the  whole  man,  the  man 
proportionate  in  all  his  desires  and  expressions, 
dominated  Hellenic  ethical  ideals ;  and  in  the 
sobering  and  enlightening  power  of  tragic  art 
Aristotle  perceived  an  agency  for  the  moulding  of 
such  a  man. 

I^ike  enough  this  view  is  not  consistent  with 
Aristotle's  hedonistic  conception  of  the  function 
'  Poetics,  vi. 


144     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

of  art  in  general,  but  we  must  bear  in  mind  that 
when  he  designates  pleasure  as  the  fitting  end  of 
art  or  of  life '  he  means  only  those  noble  and 
worthy  enjoyments  beseeming  the  man  of  wis- 
dom,— such  as  are  valued  rather  for  their  reaction 
upon  character  than  for  any  intrinsic  delight.  The 
crass  hedonism  of  later  classic  and  modern  times 
— pleasure  for  pleasure's  sake — was  never  his. 

Still  it  is  difficult  to  reconcile  the  major  dictum, 
that  the  end  of  all  art  is  pleasure,  with  the  ex- 
planation of  tragedy;  and  in  modern  speculations 
the  difficulty  has  been  in  no  wise  eased.  Indeed, 
vanities  of  keenness  have  been  devoted  to  effort 
to  show  that  pain,  where  we  meet  it  in  art,  is  not 
pain  but  pleasure,  that  tragic  grief  is  a  kind  of  re- 
joicing, and  that  aesthetic  pity  is  in  sooth  a  type 
of  bliss.  There  is  distinct  suggestion  of  gladia- 
torial appetite  in  an  assertion  that  "  a  large  group 
of  noble  and  pleasurable  emotions  can  be  evoked 
in  any  high  degree  only  by  the  spectacle  of  pain 
in  some  form, ' '  or  that  ' '  pit}'  is  pleasurable  when 
the  sorrows  pitied  are  known  to  be  imaginary  "  '; 
and  even  when  we  learn  that  this  view  rests  upon 
the  ground  that  the  pleasure  is  occasioned  by  the 
exhibition  of  heroic  virtues,  courage,  endurance, 
devotion,  magnanimity,  or  yet  by  vindication  of 
moral  law,  not  bj'^  the  actual  suffering,  the  para- 
dox is  no  whit  lessened;  for  still  we  must  suffer 

^Poetics,  iv. 

^  C.  T.  Winchester,  Principles  of  Literary  Criticism 
(1899),  pp.  65-66. 


The  Imagination  145 


with  the  suffering  hero  and  thrill  with  a  pity  not 
less  than  genuine  if  we  are  to  feel  the  moral  force; 
— nor  is  it  certain  that  any  inculcation  of  morality 
is  per  se  pleasurable,  commonly  the  contrary  is 
taken  to  be  true. 

Mr.  Courthope  rests  the  superstructure  of  his 
criticism  upon  the  assumption,  "  regarded  as  self- 
evidently  true  by  all  sound  critics  from  the  time 
of  Aristotle  .  .  .  that  the  end  of  the  fine  arts 
is  to  produce  enduring  pleasure  for  the  imagina- 
tion," '  modifying  that  "  this  idea  of  pleasure  in- 
cludes rapture,  enthusiasm,  even  pain  of  the  kind 
intended  by  Aristotle,  when  he  says  that  Tragedy 
effects  a  purgation  of  Pity  and  Terror  by  means 
of  those  passions."  "^  Were  it  not  for  the  saving 
qualification,  "sound"  critics,  this  contention 
might  be  challenged  upon  historical  grounds,  for 
certainly  we  have  had  more  than  one  apostle  of  the 
didactic  or  devotional  function  of  art;  but  grant- 
ing the  venerableness  of  the  tradition,  there  is  the 
more  reason  for  calling  it  to  account.  At  least  to 
one  having  a  psychologist's  appetite  for  exact 
discriminations  of  the  mind's  affections,  or  yet  a 
lexicographer's  respect  for  the  exact  use  of  words, 
it  must  seem  arrant  contradiction  to  assert  that 
pain,  of  whatever  kind,  can  be  pleasure,  however 
modified.  Certainly  the  common  man  is  wont  to 
find  tragedy  painful,  and  even  the  critic,  in  for- 
getful moments,  censures  extreme  portrayal  of 

•  Life  in  Poetry.    Law  in  Taste,  p.  39. 
^  Ibid.,  p.  64. 


146     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

suffering,  not  as  surfeiting  the  spectator's  capacity 
for  enjoyment,  but  as  straining  bis  endurance  of 
pain. 

Surely  there  is  absurdity  in  the  traditional  he- 
donism; 3^et  it  seems  to  have  forced  its  bias  even 
upon  the  psychology  of  aesthetics.  How  other- 
wise account  for  Professor  Santayana's  anomalous 
conception  of  beauty  as  "  objectified  pleasure"  ? 
It  is  quite  inconceivable  how  any  emotion  can  be 
objectified;  its  essential  nature  is  subjectivity,  and 
our  feelings,  of  all  psychical  states  freest  from 
external  attachment,  are  utterly  incapable  of 
externalisation;  we  may  localise  hunger  in  the 
stomach,  toothache  in  the  tooth,  but  no  ache  and 
no  delight  can  be  projected  beyond  the  body, 
while  all  such  emotions  as  joy  and  hate  and  love 
and  sorrow  have  their  whole  existence  in  subjec- 
tive consciousness.  Of  course,  '  externalisation  ' 
and  '  objectification '  are  not  identical,  but  ob- 
jectifications  which  do  not  externalise  take  the 
form  of  ideal  representation  in  mental  image  or 
symbol,  and  while  emotions  may  be  so  symbo- 
lised, the  symbol  is  always  algebraic, —  love  may 
be  indicated  to  the  mind  either  by  the  word  or  by 
a  mental  image  of  loving  or  yet  by  an  attitude  of 
the  general  intelligence,  but  none  of  these  has 
anything  in  common  with  the  love  that  thrills  the 
heart;  their  function  is  wholly  vicarious.  It  may 
be  urged  that  beauty  is  a  type  of  objectification 
peculiarly  adapted  to  the  embodiment  of  our  more 
intimate  psychic  qualities,  that  it  really  does  por- 


The  Imagination  147 

tray  our  inmost  nature  impersonally,  and  tran- 
scends both  symbolism  and  ordinary  perceptions 
of  truth  in  its  power  of  compelling  realisation  of 
significances;  but  while  this  is  granted,  it  cannot 
mean  that  we  may  therefore  identify  a  kind  of 
pure  subjectivity — pleasure — with  an  experience 
so  largely  objective  as  is  experience  of  beauty. 
Beauty  as  "  objectified  pleasure"  has  no  connec- 
tion with  pleasurable  emotion;  the  phrase  in  no 
wise  enlightens,  but  serves  only  to  puzzle  by 
reason  of  its  inherent  contradiction.  Nor  is  there 
help  in  the  alternative,  ' '  beauty  is  pleasure  re- 
garded as  the  quality  of  a  thing  "  ' ;  for  any  defi- 
nition of  pleasure  must  recognise  it  as  a  quality 
of  consciousness  and  consciousness  only,  and  even 
then  more  as  subject  than  attribute.  It  is  not 
until  we  perceive  that  Professor  Santayana  really 
defines  the  beautiful  as  that  which  occasions 
pleasure  of  a  distinctive  sort  that  his  view  can  be 
understood;  but  even  so  "pleasure  objectified" 
seems  to  be  but  an  attempt  to  differentiate  this 
distinctive  pleasure  from  other  pleasures,  and  it 
can  hardly  be  granted  that  the  attempt  succeeds. 
For  in  simple  truth,  whatever  its  occasion, 
emotion  is  always  real  and  always  self-character- 
ised: we  do  not  define  our  emotions  according  to 
their  occasions,  but  according  to  their  intrinsic 
qualities;  they  are  self-evident  or  they  are  nothing. 
They  come  and  go  with  catholic  inconsequence; 
they  may  be  weak,  they  may  be  strong,  but  each 
'  The  Sense  of  Beauty  (1896),  p.  49. 


14S     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

bears  its  own  mark  of  identity,  and  the  judgment 
of  that  identity  is  an  entirely  personal  and  subjec- 
tive oflSce.  Pain  is  pain,  joy  is  joy;  each  may 
have  a  multitude  of  causes,  or  indeed  the  same 
cause  may  give  rise  to  both;  but  for  all  that  they 
never  lose  self-distinction  in  consciousness.  If 
we  call  the  pain  imaginary  or  the  joy  ideal,  we 
speak  by  metonymy:  what  we  mean  is  that  the 
pain  has  an  imaginary  cause,  that  the  joy  is  due 
to  the  exhilarating  influence  of  the  ideal.  The 
emotions  themselves  are  bona  fide;  and  to  us  of 
the  slower  wit  it  is  positive  easing  of  mental  be- 
wilderment to  know  that  the  ineffable  pathos  of 
Ophelia's  madness  is  not  in  reality  a  refined 
pleasure  over  a  spectacle  of  human  affliction, 
that  the  numbing  horror  of  the  first  scene  of  the 
last  act  of  Macbeth  is  no  coddled  thrill  of  an  effete 
aestheticism,  but  true  token  of  spiritual  revolt 
from  sin.  Indeed,  more  than  in  aught  else,  in 
the  verity  of  the  emotions  which  art  arouses  we 
judge  its  truth;  if  it  affects  us  as  reality  affects 
us,  stirring  the  like  emotion,  then  we  pronounce 
it  true  imitation  of  reality;  if  it  fails  on  this  test, 
we  pronounce  it  spurious.  In  the  assent  of  emo- 
tion, first  of  all,  truth  and  beauty  are  judged  akin. 
But  it  would  be  unjust  to  leave  the  implication 
that  hedonistic  aesthetics  owes  its  whole  impulsion 
to  hedonistic  ethics.  The  theory  possesses  a  por- 
tion of  native  truth  supplementing  its  traditional 
tenacity.  For  example,  the  large  body  of  ro- 
mantic art  seems  to  exist  wholly  to  please  by  en- 


The  Imagination  149 

tertaining ;  a  "  flood  of  novels ' '  is  the  logical 
affliction  of  a  pleasure-seeking  age,  and  in  any 
period  there  is  a  normal  appetite  for  entertain- 
ment only  to  be  satisfied  by  pleasuring.  Still  we 
do  not  fail  to  distinguish  between  art  which  exists 
to  give  romantic  gratification  and  art  which  we 
call  great :  the  latter,  we  say,  inspires ;  and  therein 
we  distinguish  from  hedonism  the  true  ofl&ce  of 
artistic  expression, — to  reveal  ideal  character  and 
awaken  aspiration  that  it  become  our  own. 

A  more  cogent  occasion  of  the  persistence  of 
hedonism  is  the  common  failure  to  separate  pleas- 
ure and  ^5//2^//r^a//i/a^//^;z.  The  true  nature  of 
the  latter  is  only  to  be  made  clear  by  reference 
to  its  analogue  in  rational  thinking.  When  we 
experience  a  desire  for  knowledge,  when  interest 
and  curiosity  are  aroused,  we  put  ourselves  in  the 
way  of  rational  acquisition,  and,  if  our  curiosity 
is  sufficiently  limited,  achieve  the  desired  ad- 
dition. Our  curiosity  is  annihilated,  and  in  place 
of  doubt  we  experience  a  feeling  of  certitude,  the 
satisfaction  of  our  quest.  Similarly  in  syllogistic 
reasoning, —  merely  to  entertain  the  premisses  of 
a  syllogism  creates  a  state  of  mental  unrest  only 
to  be  quieted  by  the  deduced  conclusion  :  once 
that  is  formulated,  our  concern  ceases  and  we  are 
satisfied.  Esthetic  satisfaction  is  a  like  experi- 
ence, it  is  a  feeling  of  fitness  and  completeness 
signifying  recognition  of  beauty  just  as  the  feel- 
ing of  certitude  marks  logical  assent.  Neither 
satisfaction  is  to  be  identified  with  pleasure;  for 


150     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

pleasure  is  commonly  an  accompaniment  of  ac- 
tivity, whereas  judgment,  whether  of  the  logical 
or  aesthetic  sense,  marks  the  termination  of  a 
mental  action.  Satisfaction  might  be  taken  as 
the  emotional  seal  of  recognition;  as  such  it  marks 
a  quieting  rather  than  a  stimulation  of  conscious- 
ness. Of  course  emotion  of  any  sort  may  ensue, 
— joy  at  the  recognition  of  a  friend,  fear  at  the 
recognition  of  an  enemy, —  but  this  ensuing  emo- 
tion must  not  be  confounded  with  that  which 
marks  the  quiescence  of  curiosity,  it  is  rather  the 
concomitant  of  newly  aroused  desires.  Doubtless 
the  cause  of  the  more  insistent  alignment  of 
aesthetic  satisfaction  with  pleasure  is  its  subjec- 
tive dependence;  appreciation  of  aesthetic  charm 
is  determined  by  no  arbitrary  compulsion  of  ex- 
ternal fact  comparable  to  that  which  determines 
judgments  of  truth;  rather,  beauty  persuades  us, 
and  woos  by  coy  solicitation  that  awakening  of 
sympathy  which  is  breath  of  her  life. 

Neither  is  the  second  great  division  of  aesthetic 
feeling  to  be  identified  wdth  pleasure.  This  is 
cesthetic  attraction,  best  described  as  the  magnet- 
ism of  beauty,  the  tug  and  pull  of  the  incarnate 
ideal.  Such  attraction  may  be  sensuously  hyp- 
notic, as  with  the  prismatic  radiance  of  plastic  art; 
it  may  be  the  thrill  felt  at  depiction  of  noble 
deeds;  it  may  be  in  the  pathos  that  we  call  sub- 
lime, or  in  the  grandeur  and  glory  and  imme- 
morial greatness  of  the  Nature  that  abashes  us;  it 
may  be  in  the  yearning  and  wistfulness  responsive 


The  Imagination  151 

to  the  winter's  dying  sunset  or  to  the  blue  serenity 
of  summer  skies — too  blue!  too  serene! — or  to  the 
poignant  last  note  of  the  violin.  Elusive  always, 
it  is,  but  inestimable  token  of  our  implicit  trust  in 
some  final  value  of  the  universe. 

An  aberrant  form  of  aesthetic  attraction  is  the 
attraction  of  taint.  The  thing  is  likely  pathologi- 
cal, though  the  art  it  engenders  is  not  always  so 
conceived.  What  I  mean  is  the  mesmeric,  repel- 
lent fascination  which  the  unlovely  so  often  ex- 
erts. Maupassant  testifies  to  the  horror  of  it,  the 
morbid  insistence,  the  revolting  obsession, — and 
bye  and  bye  he  goes  mad.  Artists  before  and 
since  have  found  a  kind  of  relief  in  giving  con- 
crete expression  to  besetting  afflictions  of  the  im- 
agination,— cases  where  the  creative  impulse  was 
effort  to  slough  off  a  burden  of  foulness  and  ac- 
complish a  veritable  katharsis  of  the  soul.  But 
this  pertains  to  the  pathology  of  art. 

In  resume,  we  distinguish  two  distinct  types 
of  emotion  involved  in  imaginative  experience. 
First,  the  narrowly  aesthetical  feelings  and  emo- 
tions: aesthetic  satisfaction,  the  conscious  sign  of 
a  judgment  of  beauty,  and  aesthetic  attraction, 
with  manifold  emotional  interpretations  of  beauty. 
Second,  the  whole  range  of  primitive  emotion — 
pain,  pleasure,  fear,  love,  hatred,  joy,  sorrow, 
shame,  pride,  and  the  like,  —  any  or  all  of  which 
may  respond  to  imaginative  occasion,  and  all  of 
which  normally  belong  to  artistic  representation 
of  life.     But  when  so  occasioned,  these  emotions 


152    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

do  not  lose  their  true  and  accustomed  character, 
nor  by  dint  of  any  unintelligibility  become  trans- 
muted into  aesthetic  pleasure;  rather,  because  of 
their  genuineness  they  testify  the  art's  truth. 


CHAPTER  VI 

ESTHETIC   EXPRESSION 
I — THE  CRKATIVE  PROCESS 

BEFORE  attempting  any  description  of  im- 
aginative creation,  it  is  essential  clearly  to 
preface  that  only  the  superficial  aspect  of  the  pro- 
cess is  to  be  treated.  Only  what  appears  in  con- 
sciousness may  be  deliminated,  and  I  have  already 
stated  that  the  commoner  attitude  of  conscious- 
ness toward  aesthetic  presentations  is  passive  and 
foreign.  Creatures  of  the  imagination  seem 
hardly  less  objective  than  objects  in  the  natural 
world,  as  is  sufl&ciently  shown  by  the  fact  that 
they  may  be  moulded  to  the  semblance  of  nature, 
as  in  plastic  art,  without  loss  of  their  essential 
character;  nor  does  any  theory  of  aesthetics  fail 
to  stress  the  unique  objectivity  of  the  beautiful. 

Yet  I  hold  that  the  creative  process  per  se  is  the 
most  intimate  characteristic  of  the  human  soul. 
It  is  the  process  of  the  soul's  growth,  the  gist 
of  the  vital  principle,  which,  could  we  compre- 
hend it,  would  give  us  insight  into  the  character 
and  intentions  of  the  universe  such  as  no  other 
153 


154    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

knowledge  could  give.  That  this  knowledge  is 
so  largely  impossible  is  the  great  anomaly  of  con- 
scious existence,  incarnate  riddle  of  the  Sphinx, 
for  surely  nothing  is  more  marvellous  than  that 
we  know  best  what  is  only  superficially  ours,  and 
least  what  is  most  intimate  and  lasting  and  the 
secret  of  our  personality.  Yet  asking  reason  of 
biological  need,  the  reason  appears;  for  evolution 
of  life  would  have  been  cumbered  rather  than 
furthered  by  full  consciousness  of  vital  activit}'-, 
while  consciousness  of  environment  such  as  should 
enable  economical  orientation  of  that  activity  was 
indispensable.  The  marvel  is  thus  resolved  by 
analysis  of  the  function  of  consciousness  :  if  a 
poor  simile  may  be  ventured,  vital  being  may  be 
likened  to  a  vastly  complicated  engine,  wherein 
the  vital  force,  likened  to  physical  energy,  is  con- 
ceived as  the  expansive  impulse  of  life,  while  the 
mechanism  itself  corresponds  to  the  conscious 
world  and  represents  the  points  of  contact  between 
the  force  and  the  environment  through  control 
of  which  it  becomes  effective.  Consciousness,  on 
this  view,  exists  only  where  some  sort  of  friction 
is  created  between  the  growing  life  and  the  world 
within  which  the  growth  is  accomplished,  and 
consciousness  is,  therefore,  not  at  all  the  centre 
and  substance  but  only  the  farthest  outpost  of 
human  personality. 

But  scant  though  our  revelation  of  this  person- 
ality, it  is  still  our  greatest  concern,  and  we  must 
gather  what  we  may  of  life's  significance  from 


Esthetic  Expression  155 

study  of  those  processes  which  most  nearly  define 
it.  Of  such  are  our  mental  syntheses  and  above 
all  that  of  the  imagination,  for  which  alone 
no  utilitarian  explanation  sufficiently  accounts. 
True  its  processes  may  be  only  baldly  and  ex- 
ternally sketched,  but  it  is  hoped  that  even  so 
there  may  be  gathered  some  hint  of  the  underly- 
ing potency  which  gives  to  all  art  a  semblance  of 
cosmical  vitality  and  makes  all  poetry  prophetic. 

I.  Presentation  and  Seledioji. — If  the  preface 
has  been  made  comprehensible,  it  will  readily  be 
seen  that  any  such  term  as  *  mere  receptivity ' 
or  '  passive  apprehension '  is  misnomer  when 
applied  to  an  operation  of  consciousness.  All 
consciousness  is  token  of  life-expansion  and  sign 
of  aggressive  conquest  rather  than  receptive  qui- 
escence. Its  least  manifestation  is  efficient  reac- 
tion; any  conquest  of  Nature  compels  alteration 
of  character.  What  we  really  mean  when  we 
speak  of  a  receptive  or  of  a  passive  mind  is  that 
there  is  no  volitional  opposition  to  whatever  is 
taking  place;  there  is  no  revolt  against  the  course 
of  events.  But  the  course  of  events  itself  is  ac- 
tivity and  awareness  of  it  token  of  the  mind's 
participation  in  it. 

Hence  any  perception  of  aesthetic  charm  is  part 
creation  of  that  charm  and  the  beginning  of  all 
creative  process.  This  was  illustrated  in  the 
discussion  of  the  presentational  elements  of  im- 
agination by  the  artist's  instinct  for  seeing  and 
remembering  only  the  artistic  aspects  of  things. 


156    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

Consciously  or  unconsciously  the  mind  governed 
by  the  mood  of  beauty  tends  to  eliminate  what- 
ever is  ugly  in  sense-presentations;  to  it  poverty 
becomes  picturesque  and  dirt  itself  often  an 
aesthetic  gratification.  Psychologists  have  long 
taught  that  our  commonest  perceptions  instil  far 
more  into  objects  perceived  than  is  given  through 
sensation;  in  perception  of  aesthetic  quality  we 
have  extreme  illustration  of  this,  for  however 
objectively  inherent  beauty  and  ugliness  may  ap- 
pear, they  are  always  the  mind's  contribution  to 
perception. 

More  obvious  construction  appears  in  reverie 
and  as  consequence  of  what  may  be  called  scenic 
stimulation.  The  mind  freely  yields  to  the  slight- 
est suggestion,  turning  hither  and  thither  at  any 
behest  of  fancy,  lightly  volant  as  feather-down. 
In  reverie  of  the  fire-light  sort  the  suggestions 
seem  to  come  mainly  from  unusual  fluidity  of 
ideas  attended  b}''  minimal  consciousness  of  ex- 
ternal influences  ;  but  we  find  practically  the  same 
type  of  activity  where  it  can  be  referred  to  ex- 
ternal stimulation,  as  in  appreciation  of  natural 
scenery  or  in  the  soothing  charm  of  music,  induc- 
ing illimitable  vagaries  of  imagination  while  there 
is  yet  no  intelligent  apprehension  of  the  music's 
structure  or  purpose.  Such  unobtrusive  aesthetic 
stimulation  —  scenic,  let  us  say, —  is  vastly  con- 
ducive to  imaginative  activity.  The  inilieii  does 
not  create  but  it  inspires, —  or  more  precisely,  it 
soothes  and  incites  the  mind  to  the  mood  where 


Esthetic  Expression         157 

inspiration  is  possible.  So  natural  scenery  in- 
spires poetic  reflection;  the  poetry  is  not  an  ex- 
cerpt from  Nature  but  from  the  poetic  spirit 
aroused  to  natural  beauty;  and  it  is  perhaps  testi- 
mony of  the  ancientness  of  poetic  instinct  that  the 
solitude  and  the  wild  is  still  the  most  powerful  of 
the  Muses.  The  capacity  of  music  for  eliciting 
emotional  rapport  is  frequently  utilised  in  drama 
by  underscoring,  one  might  say,  dramatic  effects 
with  softened  melodies.  This  is  typically  a  mere 
artifice  of  melodrama,  but  it  was  an  essential  fea- 
ture of  the  Greek  dramatic  chorus,  and  it  is  by  no 
means  certain  that  the  possibilities  of  such  art  have 
been  sounded  ;  if  the  gift  of  colour- audition  were 
common  (and  who  knows  what  mental  evolution 
may  yet  bring  forth?)  a  complicated  artistic 
structure  might  hereon  be  reared. 

But  there  is  a  higher  type  of  appreciation. 
The  beauty  of  Nature  may  so  possess  us  or  the 
charm  of  music  so  lay  hold  of  us  that  the  whole 
consciousness  centres  upon  the  intrinsic  quality 
of  the  presentation.  We  are  aware  of  no  effort 
of  attention;  there  is  no  temptation  to  follow  the 
wile  of  other  charm  than  that  which  possesses  us  ; 
the  mind  is  fascinated,  enchanted,  and  we  feel 
ourselves  bent  to  an  external  will ;  we  enter  into 
sympathy  with  Nature,  into  harmony  with  song, 
and  lose  consciousness  of  self  in  an  overpowering 
sense  of  besetting  beauty. 

Such  appreciation  is  appropriation  ;  and  effort- 
less  as  it  may  seem,  demands  full  measure  of 


158    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

creative  power.  Sympathy  is  essentially  an  ex- 
pansion of  spirit  and  a  creation  within  the  spirit 
of  the  true  semblance  of  whatever  the  sympathy 
comprehends.  The  stimulus  is  effective  because 
it  touches  the  right  chord,  awakens  keen  re- 
sponse ;  and  the  response  is  internal  reconstruc- 
tion of  the  being  imposed  from  without.  If  this 
savour  of  Platonic  recollection,  I  beg  to  qualify 
that  I  do  not  mean  that  every  appreciation  exactly 
reconstructs  the  object  of  its  interest.  We  know 
better  than  that.  Not  only  in  the  realm  of  beauty 
but  in  that  of  truth  it  is  with  utmost  labour  that 
we  get  semblance  of  mutual  understanding.  Our 
differences  of  opinion  mark  native  restriction,  but 
they  also  deliminate  individualities  and  so  testify 
what  I  would  urge  :  that  each  in  his  own  spirit 
re-creates  whatever  really  stirs  his  sympathy.  So 
Browning  shows  Sordello, — 

But  quick 
To  the  main  wonder,  now.    A  vault,  see ;  thick 
Black  shade  about  the  ceiling,  though  fine  slits 
Across  the  buttress  suffer  light  by  fits 
Upon  a  marvel  in  the  midst.     Nay,  stoop — 
A  dullish  grey-streaked  cumbrous  font,  a  group 
Round  it, — each  side  of  it,  where  'er  one  sees, — 
Upholds  it;  shrinking  Caryatides 
Of  just-tinged  marble  like  Eve's  lilied  flesh 
Beneath  her  maker's  fingers  when  the  fresh 
First  pulse  of  life  shot  brightening  the  snow. 
The  font's  edge  burthens  every  shoulder,  so 
They  muse  upon  the  ground,  eyelids  half  closed  ; 
Some,  with  meek  arms  behind  their  backs  disposed, 


Esthetic  Expression  159 

Some,  crossed  above  their  bosoms,  some,  to  veil 

Their  eyes,  some,  propping  chin  and  cheek  so  pale. 

Some,  hanging  slack  an  utter  helpless  length 

Dead  as  a  buried  vestal  whose  whole  strength 

Goes  when  the  grate  above  shuts  heavily. 

So  dwell  these  noiseless  girls,  patient  to  see, 

Like  priestesses  because  of  sin  impure 

Penanced  for  ever,  who  resigned  endure, 

Having  that  once  drunk  sweetness  to  the  dregs. 

And  every  eve  Sordello's  visit  begs 

Pardon  for  them  ;  constant  as  eve  he  came 

To  sit  beside  each  in  her  turn,  the  same 

As  one  of  them,  a  certain  space  :  and  awe 

Made  a  great  indistinctness  till  he  saw 

Sunset  slant  cheerful  through  the  buttress  chinks. 

Gold  seven  times  globed  ;  surely  our  maiden  shrinks 

And  a  smile  stirs  her  as  if  one  faint  grain 

Her  load  were  lightened,  one  shade  less  the  strain 

Obscured  her  forehead,  yet  one  more  bead  slipt 

From  off  the  rosary  whereby  the  crypt 

Keeps  count  of  the  contritions  of  its  charge. 

Then  with  a  step  more  light,  a  heart  more  large, 

He  may  depart,  leave  her  and  every  one 

To  linger  out  the  penance  in  mute  stone. 

The  degree  in  which  imaginative  reconstruction 
is  demanded  in  appreciation  of  plastic  art  is  sug- 
gestively discussed  by  M.  Souriau  ': 

When  I  recognise,  in  a  block  of  marble  or  in  a  picture, 
the  intention  of  representing  a  determined  thing,  I  no 
longer  see  it  with  the  same  eyes.  The  image  of  that 
thing  which  I  ought  to  apprehend  appears  to  me  with 
force,  mingles  with  my  perceptions,  and  wholly  transforms 

^  L' Imagination  de  I' artiste,  pp.  49-51. 


i6o    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

them.  To  perceive  a  work  of  art  before  one  seems  very 
simple.  But  our  mechanism  is  strangely  complicated. 
Psychologists  show  how  a  simple  glance  of  the  eye  cast 
upon  an  object  to  perceive  its  form  is  an  extremely  com- 
plex act  into  which  all  our  faculties  enter,  imagination  in 
greatest  part.  According  to  Wundt,  "visual  perceptions 
are  simple  schemes  which  we  fill  out  with  representa- 
tions." Without  doubt,  when  we  observe  a  representa- 
tion, it  is  necessary  that  our  imagination  put  itself  therein 
to  recognise  the  object  represented.  We  have  no  con- 
sciousness of  making  any  eflFort  to  create  an  illusion  and 
evoke  images  because  the  artist  has  known  how  to  make 
his  work  clearly  representative ;  the  desired  image  ap- 
pears immediately,  without  need  of  search  for  it,  so 
thoroughly  identified  with  our  perceptions  that  we  do  not 
distinguish  it  from  them.  But  if  the  work  is  obscure  or 
incorrect,  we  feel  the  image,  painfully  evoked,  strive  to 
place  itself  in  the  picture,  endeavour  to  sink  into  the 
figures,  modifying  them  to  its  need,  until  we  are  granted 
the  desired  illusion.  I  see  only  a  single  case  in  which 
visual  imagination  plays  no  role  in  the  perception  of  a 
work  of  art,  that  in  which  we  stupidly  regard  this  block 
of  marble  or  motlied  surface  of  multicoloured  spots,  with- 
out having  the  least  idea  that  it  can  represent  anything. 
When  we  have  thoroughly  entered  into  the  intentions 
of  the  artist,  the  illusion  produces  itself.  What,  for  ex- 
ample, is  this  statue?  It  is  a  young  girl.  She  should  be 
blonde,  with  great,  dreamy  blue  eyes  ;  her  attitude  is 
supple,  nonchalant,  with  a  suggestion  of  languor.  As  a 
matter  of  fact  there  is  no  3'oung  girl,  no  blonde  hair  nor 
blue  eyes  nor  supple  poise  :  there  is  only  a  block  of  hard 
white  marble,  wrought  into  feminine  form  to  be  sure,  but 
how  diff'erent  from  the  real  woman  !  If  you  cause  to  dis- 
appear, by  recall  to  reality,  all  that  yoiir  imagination  has 
added  to  the  work,  if  you  endeavour  to  figure  to  yourself 
a  young  girl  who  should  be  such  as  this  marble  truly  is, 


^Esthetic  Expression         i6i 

with  this  tone  of  flesh,  this  colour  of  the  hair,  that  would 
in  truth  be  something  horrible.  And  yet  that  which  ap- 
pears to  you  is  charming  :  and  hence  it  is  evident  that  in 
the  marble  you  perceive  something  other  than  what  your 
eyes  actually  show  you.  You  see  of  the  object  before  you 
only  what  it  is  essential  that  you  should  see  of  it,  and 
you  see  in  it  all  that  you  ought  to  see  in  it.  Let  an  in- 
dication, the  most  trivial  provided  it  be  just  and  precise, 
signify  to  you  an  intention  to  render  in  the  marble  an  ef- 
fect of  colour,  a  contrast,  a  movement,  whatever  it  may 
be,  and  all  that  will  forthwith  be  suggested  by  your  im- 
agination :  you  think  to  perceive  it  when  you  only  cause 
it  to  be  represented  to  you.  Sometimes  the  sculptor,  by 
an  ingenious  artifice,  provokes  the  suggestion  in  colour- 
ing his  statue  so  discretely  that  you  hardly  note  that  the 
marble  carries  a  real  colour,  and  then,  by  an  illusion  in- 
verse of  the  preceding,  you  think  that  you  imagine  only 
what  in  reality  you  perceive  (as,  the  Tanagra  of  G^rome). 

Enlightening  as  this  view  is  in  revealing  the 
high  development  of  appreciative  imagination,  it 
seems  to  overestimate  average  powers.  Probably 
most  persons  see  nothing  of  the  colour  and  hue 
of  flesh  in  the  marble  image,  but  only  the  nude 
abstraction  of  the  white  form — to  M.  Souriau  so 
horrible.  Yet  these  minds  not  only  find  beauty 
in  the  form,  but  to  some  at  least  the  abstractness 
of  it  appears  as  the  true  cause  of  the  charm.  The 
late  Dean  Everett '  accounted  power  of  abstraction 
an  essential  factor  of  beauty  in  art,  while  the  fixa- 
tion, sub  specie  cBternitatis ,  of  our  fleetingest  moods 
in  the  cold  purity  of  sculpture  seemed  the  secret 

'  Charles  Carroll  Everett,  Poetry,  Comedy  and  Duty. 


1 62    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

of  its  august  eternalism.  Perhaps  the  difiference 
is  that  here  the  naked  form  is  filled  in  with  an 
ideational  rather  than  a  sensuous  context,  the  in- 
ternal reconstruction  receiving  its  impulse  from 
moral  rather  than  perceptual  imagination. 

I  think  the  difference  is  really  of  trenchant 
purport.  Primarily  it  is  that  difference  between 
the  universal  and  the  particular,  symbol  and  per- 
sonality, which  in  a  former  chapter  I  tried  to  il- 
lustrate by  contrasting  paintings,  both  suggesting 
mystic  mood,  but  the  one  concrete,  the  other 
ideal.  With  enlargement  of  ideas,  and  so  of 
modes  of  expression,  there  comes  inevitably  into 
art  that  Platonising  trend  which  creates  the  con- 
ventional language  of  beauty.  The  charm  of 
the  intensely  personal  is  not  lost,  but  it  remains 
sici genens  and  is  sharply  dijBferentiated  from  the 
charm  of  the  universal. 

It  is  his  predominate  susceptibility  to  one  form 
or  the  other,  I  conceive,  which  determines  the 
critic's  conception  of  his  own  office.  Nowadays 
we  recognise  two  camps  of  critics  :  they  who 
speak  with  authoritj^  and  they  who  are  content  to 
receive  and  interpret  impressions,  the  analysts  and 
the  masters  of  appreciation.  It  is  easy  to  perceive 
(from  the  high  seat  of  arbitrament,  at  all  events) 
that  each  contends  in  the  right.  For  where  the 
art  to  be  interpreted  is  intensely  personal  it  is 
bound,  so  long  as  growth  is,  to  develop  the  new 
and  unforeseen  and  unconstrainable;  it  is  certain 
to  generate  exotic  whimsies  for  which  the  only 


y^sthetic  Expression         163 

possible  interpretation  must  be  close  personal 
sympathy.  But  this  is  not  at  all  the  case  with 
art  seeking  expression  in  universals  and  in  that 
high  type  of  symbolism  which  human  tradition 
develops, —  as  when  the  life  of  Christ  becomes 
type  of  the  perfect  life.  To  understand  such  art 
there  is  necessary  a  prescribed  education  and  an 
initiation  into  the  cult  of  civilisation;  and  whether 
it  be  for  admonishing  the  artist  of  his  conformity 
with  tradition,  or  for  broadening  the  influence  of 
art  by  initiating  the  many  into  this  cult,  the  au- 
thoritative critic  has  here  an  important  place  and 
work. 

And  in  analytic  criticism  we  reach  the  point 
where  appreciation  becomes  consciously  selective. 
In  all  appreciation  there  is  doubtless  a  kind  of 
selection,  attention  centred  upon  one  thing  to  the 
cost  of  something  else  ;  but  in  the  more  primitive 
types  such  selection  is  compelled  by  wonder  or 
admiration,  and  the  judgment,  This  is  beautiful! 
is  felt  only  as  instinctive  assent.  After  art  has 
reached  the  self-conscious  period,  there  appears  the 
cultivated  taste,  which,  whatever  other  canons  it 
may  or  may  not  propose,  is  itself  the  prime  canon 
of  selection.  When  we  say  that  the  artist  must 
be  his  own  best  critic,  we  have  in  mind  his  exer- 
cise of  the  selective  office,  choosing  or  discarding 
from  the  manifold  presentations  furnished  by  his 
imagination.  The  criteria  of  choice  may  seem  to 
be  instinctive,  but  they  are  none  the  less  a  conse- 
quence of  education — his  or  his  fathers', — and  so, 


164    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

in  some  degree,  are  capable  of  being  objectively 
determined.  To  effect  analysis  of  elements,  with 
ranking  of  hereditary  values,  is  the  critic's  appro- 
priate task,  although  the  artist's  availment  of 
critical  dicta  must  depend  quite  as  much  upon 
his  purpose  as  upon  his  understanding  ;  in  last 
resort  only  the  purpose  may  fairly  test  the  art. 

II.  Composition  and  Synthesis. — At  the  point 
where  the  vague  stimulation  of  aesthetic  sensi- 
bility, experienced  in  reverie  or  in  inchoate  con- 
sciousness of  background  and  atmosphere,  gives 
way  to  the  insistence  of  a  vivid  and  understand- 
ing appreciation,  the  influence  of  the  stimulating 
object  is  to  be  conceived,  it  was  said,  as  like  the 
power  of  an  exter'nal  will  imposed  upon  us.  The 
general  character  of  the  resulting  consciousness 
is  definiteness  and  form  where  before  was  vagary 
and  whim;  there  is  a  precipitation  and  crystallisa- 
tion of  the  aroused  elements.  But  the  change 
from  vagueness  to  determinateness  may  be  of  an- 
other type;  it  may  take  the  form  of  an  inner  evo- 
lution of  presentations,  resulting  in  an  organic 
growth  or  creation  within  the  mind.  Such  a  pro- 
cess is  subject  to  an  internal  will,  and  exemplifies 
imaginative  composition  and  synthesis. 

Writes  a  composer ' : 

After  a  promenade  in  the  country  where  I  had  listened 
to  the  warblings  of  the  fauvette,  I  seated  myself  in  a  great 
arm-chair,  beside  the  chimney,  hearing  still  in  spirit  the 

'M.  J-L.  d'  Ortigues  ;  cited  by  Queyrat,  V Imagination. 


Esthetic  Expression         165 

bird-song  which  some  moments  before  had  struck  my 
ear  ;  this  song  awakened  in  my  soul  the  melodies  of  the 
Pastorale,  and  lo,  I  was  attending  a  marvellous  perform- 
ance of  this  symphony.  Nothing  was  wanting.  And 
what  power  of  intonation  !  what  precision  !  Even  the 
voices  of  the  great  orchestra  of  nature  came  from  time  to 
time  to  add  themselves  to  the  orchestra  of  Beethoven. 
It  is  thus  that  "  la  bete  "  (to  speak  as  Xavier  de  Maistre) 
gives  me  concerts,  and  I  have  her  to  thank  for  catching 
up,  without  the  knowledge  of  her  absent  companion, 
sometimes  a  scrap  of  melody,  sometimes  a  rhythm  caught 
I  know  not  whence,  and  for  constructing  for  me  the 
whole  sonorous  edifice  of  the  symphony. 

In  this  experience  the  main  elements  are  :  first, 
the  suggestion,  with  its  more  than  hypnotic  fe- 
cundity; second,  the  insistently  artistic  form  of 
the  presentation;  third,  the  mind's  attitude,  ob- 
serving rather  than  conceiving.  There  is  no  hint 
of  constructive  effort,  no  experimental  joining  of 
elements,  no  judicial  testing  by  instinct  of  taste.  In 
such  composition  we  have  plainly  only  the  outer- 
most aspect  of  creation;  the  real  work  seems  not 
to  take  place  in  consciousness  and  the  secret  of 
the  art  is  not  made  known  to  the  artist  himself. 

Like  spontaneity  exists  in  all  imaginative  crea- 
tion. If  in  the  case  cited,  we  have  it  as  mere 
automatism,  it  is  not  less  the  typical  and  essential 
process  in  the  most  carefully  studied  and  prepared 
achievement.  We  may  be  able  to  work  out  some 
sort  of  genetic  history  of  the  elements  incor- 
porated; the  imaginative  construction  may  first 
appear  in  fragmentary  and  unfinished  form;  the 


1 66    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

mind's  attitude  may  involve  intense  effort ;  yet 
the  actual  shaping  of  the  new  is  not  consciously 
present.  I  might  illustrate  by  reference  to  dra- 
matic composition.  A  recent  writer  offers  pre- 
sumption that  the  dramatist  having  evolved  a 
situation  is  thence  led  to  infer  the  dialogue  :  what 
would  a  character  of  this  or  that  calibre  say  in 
such  or  such  situation  ?  Now  I  venture  that  no 
dramatist  ever  so  composed  ;  the  mind's  attitude 
is  much  more  like  recollection  than  speculation; 
the  question  is  not,  What  would  X  say?  but, 
What  did  he  say?  Without  the  imaginative 
vividness  that  makes  the  scene  real,  there  could 
be  no  drama  ;  and  granted  that  vividness,  there 
could  be  no  hypothetical  attitude  of  mind.  We 
hardly  need  to  be  told  that  imagination  is  always 
concrete,  and  we  ought  thence  to  understand  that 
it  is  always  categorical. 

To  be  sure,  in  our  instance,  the  wrong  speech 
might  suggest  itself  (and  observe  I  say  suggest 
itself^, — one,  two,  three  efforts  of  memory  might 
be  required  before  the  inevitable  words  should 
appear.  But  when  they  do  appear  there  is  no 
hesitancy;  they  are  recognised  immediately  as 
the  true  and  only  possible  expression. 

There  are  thus  two  diverse  mental  processes  in 
the  operation.  On  the  one  hand,  the  spontaneous 
presentation  of  candidates  for  election;  on  the 
other,  recognition  of  the  elect.  The  first  is  the 
generative  activity,  and  the  liveliness  and  number 
of  the  presentations  measure  the  fecundity  of  the 


Esthetic  Expression  167 

imagination.  The  second  is  aesthetic  judgment, 
involving  instinct  and  taste  and  testing  artistic 
right-mindedness.  So  far  as  we  can  see,  the  first 
is  subject  to  that  unknown  quantity  of  psychology- 
passing  under  the  term  suggestion, —  to  this  and 
to  chance.  The  second  may  be  consequence  of 
education,  but  it  must  also  represent  some  natural 
endowment. 

In  describing  the  artist's  temperament,  Taine 
aptly  illustrates  the  contrasted  processes.*  First, 
of  recognition: 

There  is  one  gift  indispensable  to  all  artists  ;  no  study, 
no  degree  of  patience,  supplies  its  place  ;  if  it  is  wanting 
in  them  they  are  nothing  but  copyists  and  mechanics.  In 
confronting  objects  the  artist  must  experience  original 
sensation;  the  character  of  an  object  strikes  him,  and 
the  effect  of  this  sensation  is  a  strong,  peculiar  impres- 
sion. In  other  words,  when  a  man  is  born  with  talent 
his  perceptions — or  at  least  a  certain  class  of  perceptions 
— are  delicate  and  quick ;  he  naturally  seizes  and  dis- 
tinguishes, with  a  sure  and  watchful  tact,  relationships 
and  shades  ;  at  one  time  the  plaintive  or  heroic  sense  in 
a  sequence  of  sounds,  at  another  the  listlessness  or  state- 
liness  of  an  attitude,  and  again  the  richness  or  sobriety 
of  two  complementary  or  contiguous  colours.  Through 
this  faculty  he  penetrates  to  the  very  heart  of  things,  and 
seems  to  be  more  clear-sighted  than  other  men. 

And  again,  of  the  spontaneity  of  suggestion  : 

Under  the  force  of  the  original  impulse  the  active  brain 
recasts  and  transforms  the  object,  now  to  illumine  and 

'  Philosophy  of  Art  (1873),  PP-  78-80. 


1 68    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

ennoble  it,  now  to  distort  and  grotesquely  pervert  it ;  in 
the  free  sketch,  as  in  the  violent  caricature,  you  readily 
detect,  with  poetic  temperaments,  the  ascendency  of  in- 
voluntary impressions.  Familiarise  yourself  with  the 
great  artists  and  great  authors  of  your  century  ;  study  the 
sketches,  designs,  diaries,  and  correspondence  of  the  old 
masters,  and  you  will  everywhere  find  the  same  inward 
process.  We  may  adorn  it  with  beautiful  names ;  we 
may  call  it  genius  or  inspiration,  which  is  right  and 
proper  ;  but  if  you  wish  to  define  it  precisely  you  must  al- 
ways verify  therein  the  vivid  spontaneous  sensation  which 
groups  together  the  train  of  accessory  ideas,  masters, 
fashions,  metamorphoses  and  employs  them  in  order  to 
become  manifest. 

A  work  of  art  may  be  spontaneously  given,  as 
a  picture  to  Blake,  his  Pastorale  to  d'Ortigues  ;  or 
it  may  arise  from  constructive  intention  and  pre- 
conception,—  whether  of  abstract  idea  (as  with 
Zola's  novels,  as  a  sculptured  Justice  instances), 
or  of  an  ideal  personality  (a  Madonna,  a  hero  of 
Hellas,  a  king  of  England);  but  in  either  case 
the  gist  of  the  generative  process,  the  mechanism 
of  the  synthesis,  and  the  source  of  the  instinct 
of  taste  are  subconscious.  In  consciousness 
itself  exist  only  the  feeling  and  content  of  sug- 
gestion together  with  recognition  of  the  appro- 
priateness or  inappropriateness  of  this  content  for 
the  purpose  intended.  Of  this  purpose  we  are 
now  to  speak  :  sometimes  it  is  ideally  present  to 
the  mind,  and  the  art  then  becomes  a  product  of 
conscious  will ;  sometimes  it  exists  in  the  portal- 
less  closets  of  the  inmost  soul,  and  the  art  then 


i 


Esthetic  Expression  169 

seems  to  be  voice  of  some  mysterious  personality 
or  yet  the  uncanny  expression  of  a  soul  possessed. 
III.  Wz/l  and  Obsession. — First,  some  sketch  of 
volition,  We  commonly  conceive  an  act  of  will 
to  consist  of  an  effort  to  achieve  a  predetermined 
end.  There  is  a  consciousness  of  the  end  desired 
or  determined  upon,  and  then  a  concentration  of 
mental  or  bodily  activitj'  leading  to  the  consum- 
mation of  this  end.  Thus  will  presupposes  design 
or  purpose,  and  its  innermost  nature  implies  teleo- 
logical  prevision.  The  type  of  the  operation  is 
Aristotle's  conception  of  genesis,  appearing  in  his 
doctrine  of  causation.  Therein  the  Formal  Cause 
represents  the  design,  and  so  the  original  impul- 
sion; the  Efficient  Cause  represents  the  effort  and 
energy;  the  Final  Cause  portrays  the  desired  ob- 
ject and  the  end-for- which  of  the  whole  process. 
The  significance  of  the  process  is  in  the  Formal 
and  Final  Causes,  in  the  teleology;  the  efficiency 
is  mere  agent.  Interpretation  of  the  process 
always  takes  the  form  of  a  relation  between  the 
impulsion,  the  Formal  Cause,  and  the  ideal  end, 
the  Final  Cause,  which,  in  Aristotle's  conception, 
are  ideally  the  same,  the  design  being  identical 
with  its  true  realisation.  But  in  finite  experience 
desire  is  never  wholly  satisfied  and  the  ideal  never 
wholly  realised  ;  were  they  so,  we  should  have 
that  oneness  of  Form  and  End  which  Plato  con- 
ceived to  be  the  essential  nature  of  the  Idea,  and 
there  would  then  be  no  genuine  becoming  but 
only  a  static  realisation  of  ideal  ends. 


I70    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

To  account  for  the  actuality  of  growth,  Aristotle 

interjected  a  fourth  cause,  the  Material,  which  is 
the  plastic  subject  of  the  evolution  of  Form.  But 
matter  is  not  wholly  plastic  ;  at  least,  as  we  find 
it  in  a  partially  developed  world  it  has  already  as- 
sumed the  cast  of  Forms  that  have  moulded  it  in 
aeons  past;  and  so,  when  new  ideals  would  bend 
it  to  their  wish,  there  is  a  conflict  of  Formal 
Causes  resulting  in  mutual  alteration  and  the  con- 
sequent incursion  of  an  incalculable  element  into 
the  evolutionary  process.  There  is,  in  other 
words,  a  becoming  of  the  Form  and  a  growth  of 
ideals  as  well  as  alteration  of  the  material  subject 
of  change. 

In  the  incalculable  element  we  find  the  philo- 
sophical equivalent  of  chance  or  of  the  evolutional 
'  tendency  to  vary  ' ;  but  it  is  only  because  of  the 
finiteness  of  the  Forms  with  which  we  are  ac- 
quainted that  such  an  element  exists.  If  there  is 
a  World-Evolution  governed  by  a  supreme  Form, 
in  it  chance  would  disappear;  every  minor  or 
partial  Form,  every  human  ideal,  would  exist 
only  as  proportionate  factor  of  the  Cosmic  Idea 
and  what  seems  to  us  accident  or  vagary  would 
be  but  the  working  out  of  Cosmic  Intention. 

Now  just  as  we  may  thus  conceive  a  World 
Will  moulding  the  Universe  to  its  end,  so  we  may 
—  indeed,  must — conceive  a  self  or  character  be- 
hind the  superficiality  of  passing  consciousness, 
which  moulds  our  fleeting  moods  to  its  more  rigid 
purposes.     Such  a  self  we  presuppose  when  we 


Esthetic  Expression         171 

take  account  of  heredity  and  instinct,  and  such  a 
self  we  recognise  when  we  find  the  unity  of  con- 
sistent unfoldment  in  a  life's  natural  history. 
And  finding  this  consistency,  this  wonder  of  hu- 
man personality  which  in  our  better  inspiration 
we  term  spiritual  life,  we  perceive  that  it  is  gov- 
erned by  a  purpose  over-ruling  all  passing  desires, 
by  a  will  beside  which  our  ordinary  volitions  are 
puny  and  vague. 

This  is  the  will  which  I  called  the  internal  will, 
—  the  guiding  power  of  a  life's  ideals  and  the 
moulder  of  its  personality.  The  minor  volitions 
that  enter  consciousness  may  aid  it  to  its  ends, 
but  they  do  not  determine  these  ends  ;  the  contra- 
dictoriness  of  consciousness  shows  that.  But  by 
the  external  will  I  mean  the  will  of  Nature  and 
the  influence,  resulting  from  the  interaction  of 
Nature's  wish  and  ours,  which  seemingly  hinders 
all  realisation  of  ideals. 

Yet  is  this  external  will  not  wholly  external. 
Man  holds  a  sort  of  kingship  over  Nature,  mak- 
ing her  thrall  of  his  mind  and  giving  her  the 
hue  of  his  human  flesh.  The  sure  token  of  this 
kingly  power  is  our  appreciation  of  her  tyrannous 
beauty;  for  natural  loveliness  is  really  engendered 
by  the  human  soul,  existing  as  a  fashion  of  the 
soul's  perceptions.  Testimony  of  this  is  the  indi- 
viduality of  art, —  as  in  the  art  of  the  landscape 
painter,  closest  of  all  to  Nature's  innate  quality, 
yet  infinitely  various  in  its  humanisation.  As 
for  the  volitional  activity  which  passingly  appears 


172    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

in  consciousness,  it  is  only  a  more  or  less  specious 
representative  of  the  subtler  and  deeper  idealising 
activity.  And  it  is  also  somewhat  deformed  and 
fragmentary;  its  achievement  always  disappoints, 
the  desired  end  never  quite  satisfies  in  attainment; 
there  has  always  been  a  growth  of  the  ideal,  show- 
ing that  our  conscious  prevision  was  inadequate, 
raising  promise  of  better  realisation  be3'ond,  and 
enkindling  desire  anew.  Thus  the  process  of 
realisation  is  a  process  of  idealising  and  the  cen- 
tral circumstance  of  the  ideal  life. 

The  fragmentariness  of  the  specious  will  is  at- 
tested by  the  fact,  hitherto  mentioned,  that  we 
are  capable  of  willing  an  attitude  of  expectancy 
or  of  pervasive  effort, —  tacit  acknowledgment  of 
clouded  foresight.  We  may  thus  influence  the 
general  trend  of  our  presentations, —  determining 
that  their  character  shall  be  as  abstract  idea  or  as 
auditory  or  visual  image,  or  as  coloured  image  or 
black  and  white, —  while  at  the  same  time  we  do 
not  foresee  what  the  concrete  character  of  these 
presentations  is  to  be.  It  is  as  if  the  conscious 
will  were  taking  into  account  the  over-ruliug 
personality  and  making  allowance  for  its  inter- 
position. 

To  be  sure  we  feel  the  specious  will  to  be  most 
intimately  ours, —  far  closer  to  us  than  our  char- 
acter. But  this  is  one  of  the  paradoxes  of  con- 
scious life,  springing  from  biological  need;  for  it 
is  hardly  to  be  doubted  that  volitional  conscious- 
ness is  mainly  inter-bound  with  bodily  conscious- 


Esthetic  Expression         173 

ness  and  so  with  self-consciousness  and  the  emo- 
tional signals  to  bodily  action;  that  is  one  of  the 
requirements  of  quick  adaptation  to  environ- 
ment. But  self-consciousness  is  thoroughly  su- 
perficial,—  intensest  in  the  boy's  awareness  of 
awkward  limbs  or  in  the  emotional  insipidity  of 
pride.  Per  se  it  is  utterly  evanescent,  and  if  it  is 
the  focus  of  the  superficial  personality,  it  serves 
but  to  make  the  superficiality  more  evident.  We 
are  wont  to  liken  character  to  a  deep-flowing  cur- 
rent with  all  manner  of  shimmers  and  eddies  upon 
its  surface,  and  these  constitute  the  show-world 
of  consciousness  but  never  the  force  or  intent  of 
the  stream.  Only  in  rare  freedoms  from  the 
spectacular  insistence  of  the  surface,  we  lapse  into 
the  larger  life  and  feel  the  strong,  unbending  im- 
pulse of  its  current.  Cavil  as  we  may  at  mystical 
consciousness,  having  any  token  of  it,  we  know 
that  it  means  an  under- sweeping  power  such  as 
we  have  no  ordinary  sign  of  and  only  vaguely 
guess  when  tragic  terror  reveals  it  in  the  aspect 
of  pursuing  Nemesis  or  when  we  give  uneasy  ear 
to  the  far  sirening  of  beauty. 

Nowadays  there  is  much  psycho-pathology  of 
the  superficial  self, —  of  its  fissions  and  whims, 
doublings  of  personality  and  contrarieties  of  will. 
Exaggerated  such  doublings  may  be  disease,  but 
they  are  for  all  that  commonplace  in  ordinary  ex- 
perience. We  remember  what  we  were  a  ten- 
year  gone  and  the  memory  lives  in  us  as  another 
self;  we  dream  a  dual-conscious  dream,  or  live  a 


174    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

day-life  and  a  dream-life  side  by  side.  And  for 
the  artists, —  the  better  part  of  their  creations  are 
consequence  of  this  populousness  of  the  spirit, 
making  of  every  man's  mind  a  commune  and  of 
his  soul  a  house  of  many  tongues.  The  indwellers 
are  an  unguessed  myriad:  that  which  we  seem 
and  think  ourselves  to  be,  and  that  which  we  are 
shocked  to  find  we  are  ;  that  which  we  aspire  to 
and  that  which  we  fear  we  maj^  become  ;  that 
which  we  remember  once  we  were  or  conceive  we 
might  have  been  ;  all  these,  and  a  horde  of  par- 
tial beings, — ghostl}'-  visitants  from  long-silenced 
heredities,  prophetic  aspects  dim  in  the  haunted 
shadow,  daemonic  guides  and  the  long  array  of 
moods  that  scourge  or  lure  till  vanquished  into 
listlessness.     Taine  relates  of  Gautier: 

He  intoxicates  himself  with  his  work,  he  overwhelms 
his  imagination  with  it,  he  is  haunted  by  his  creatures, 
he  is  obsessed  with  them,  he  has  visions  of  them,  they 
act  and  suflFer  in  him,  so  present,  so  powerful,  that  thence- 
forth they  develop  themselves  with  the  independence  and 
necessity  of  real  beings.  Awakened,  he  remains  half 
lost  in  his  dream. 

Aristotle  sets  a  bourne  of  sanity:  "  Poetry  im- 
plies either  a  happy  gift  of  nature  or  a  strain  of 
madness.  In  the  one  case  a  man  can  take  the 
mould  of  any  character;  in  the  other,  he  is  lifted 
out  of  his  proper  self."  '  Plainly  this  criterion  is 
dictated  by  that  ideal  of  temperance  native  to 

^Poetics,  xvii.,  Butcher's  translation. 


Esthetic  Expression  175 

Greek  instinct.  But  it  is  hardly  true  to  modern 
opinion.  We  would  not  dream  of  questioning  the 
greatness  of  Raphael's  art  because  he  confessed 
to  enthusiastic  madness  in  its  creation.  We  are 
coming  to  recognise  that  the  theme  may  indeed 
master  the  imagination  and  verily  lift  the  artist 
out  of  his  proper  self  without  vitiating  the  stabil- 
ity of  his  character  or  challenging  the  integrity 
of  his  creation.  I^ess  and  less  we  give  the  credit 
of  his  achievement  to  conscious  intent,  knowing 
that  its  true  rationale  is  the  evolution  of  his  char- 
acter under  the  guidance  of  instinctive  ideals. 

True  there  are  manifold  motives  to  which  we 
ascribe  aesthetic  expression, —  and  these  will  oc- 
cupy forth-due  consideration, —  but  such  motives 
are  only  the  flotsam  of  the  veritable  life.  Its  real 
impulsion  is  the  creative  character,  or  will, 
moulding  the  whole  life's  growth.  Best  we  find 
it  shown  in  imaginative  achievement,  where,  in 
the  peculiarly  dynamic  power  of  suggestion,  we 
see  evidenced  its  efficiency,  as  in  the  harmonious 
working  out  of  individuality,  which  art,  like  life, 
achieves  from  the  interweaving  of  ideal  forms,  we 
infer  the  potency  of  its  idealisations. 

II — MOTIVE   AND  INSPIRATION 

With  stammering  lips  and  insufficient  sound, 
I  strive  and  struggle  to  deliver  right 
That  music  of  my  nature,  day  and  night 
With  dream  and  thought  and  feeling  interwound, 
And  inly  answering  all  the  senses  round 


176      Poetry  and  the  Individual 

With  octaves  of  a  mystic  depth  and  height 
Which  step  out  grandly  to  the  infinite 
From  the  dark  edges  of  the  sensual  ground. 

This  song  of  soul  I  struggle  to  outbear 

Through  portals  of  the  sense,  sublime  and  whole, 

And  utter  all  myself  into  the  air  : 

But  if  I  did  it, — as  the  thunder  roll 

Breaks  its  own  cloud,  my  flesh  would  perish  there, 

Before  that  dread  apocal3'pse  of  soul. 

EwzABETH  Barrett  Browning. 

There  is  no  concern  of  his  craft  that  permits  to 
the  critic's  fancy  more  riotous  license  than  this  of 
the  motive  of  art.  Motives  of  any  sort  are  vague 
enough,  puzzling,  intangible,  mixed;  but  for  aes- 
thetic expression,  analysis  of  motive  is  most  of  all 
a  vanity.  The  artist  himself  seldom  understands 
his  motives,  they  are  so  many  and  so  many;  and 
so  the  critic  is  given  freedom  of  the  city  of  the 
artist's  soul, —  and  avails  himself  thereof. 

Take  the  case  of  poetry.     Tennyson  afl&rms, — 

I  do  but  sing  because  I  must, 
And  pipe  but  as  the  linnets  sing, — 

and  the  critic  is  guilefully  incredulous  ;  not  with- 
out reason  either,  for  we  have  not  yet  gotten  far 
enough  away  from  the  reflective  and  dignified 
personality  of  the  man  to  miss  the  quirk  of  incon- 
gruity in  the  likened  particularities  of  poet  and 
bird.  Yet  I  think  Tennyson  hits  nearer  the  truth 
than  Poe  in  his  account  of  the  artificing  of  The. 
Raven.     If  Poe  might  rationally  be  suspected  of 


Esthetic  Expression         177 

humour,  I  should  say  that  here  is  the  Hkeness  of 
his  humour's  visage ;  but  since  that  is  hardly 
presumable,  we  must  class  the  'confession'  with 
that  other  romantic  tour  de  force — the  Gold  Bug. 
Certainly,  neither  Pee  nor  any  other  poet  ever 
composed  in  the  manner  he  describes.  To  my 
mind,  Mrs.  Browning's  sonnet  expresses  the 
truest  poetic  impulse,  but  it  will  not  do  to  sup- 
pose that  all  inspiration  is  of  the  like  sort  or  all 
motives  equally  noble.  The  best  we  can  do,  for 
motives  are  interminably  interwrought,  is  to  sepa- 
rate this  from  that,  classif)^,  codify,  and  maybe 
gain  some  general  notion  of  the  mind's  com- 
plexion. If  we  aspire  to  broad  demarcation,  we 
may  distinguish  social  from  individual  motives 
(though  I  beg  that  the  reader  will  not  remit  what 
I  have  said  of  the  social  mdlvidjial);  and  this  is 
likely  a  fair  point  of  departure  in  an  era  of  socio- 
logical aesthetics. 

Communal  motive  shapes  Professor  Gummere's 
interpretation  of  poetry  ' :  song  began  in  some 
aeon-past  ring-round-the-rose  —  or  like  perform- 
ance,— as  the  clannishly  exultant  cries  inspired  by 
proximity  of  nude  bodies  ;  its  motive  culminates 
in  a  crying  of  wares  in  the  market-place.  For  the 
mercantile  motive  appeals  winningly  to  critical 
incomprehension.  Out  of  it  our  author  evolves 
his  conceptual  image  of  two  silent  men,  poet  and 
reader,  each  with  an  eye  for  the  bargain,  socially 
joined  by  the  printed  page.  Sarah  Battles  was 
'  The  Beginnings  of  Poetry. 


1 7^    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

never  more  impervious  to  the  charms  of  chess, — 
one  could  almost  imagine  that  Professor  Gummere 
never  made  a  song,  so  dull  his  comprehension  of 
how  songs  grow.  Assuredly  they  do  not  come  of 
taking  pen  in  hand,  calculating  the  market,  and 
falling  to  with  lyric  resolve.  Never  in  that  wise. 
But  there  is  a  stroll  in  the  woodland  :  autumn 
leaves — crimson,  amber,  aurean, — the  sun  shining 
through  and  shimmering  all  the  forest-way  with 
diflfuse  gold  radiance ;  in  the  nostrils  the  fruity 
balm  of  the  season  of  change,  underfoot  the  warm 
rustle  and  the  crackling  twig,  from  the  brake  a 
twitter,  a  chirp.  One  feels  the  merry,  furtive 
eyes  screened  by  the  foliage,  one  hists  a  bare 
foot's  fall,  a  sibilance  of  draperies,  and  lo,  the 
vision!  Wreath  of  oak-leaves,  scarlet  and  golden, 
brown  roguish  face,  the  laughingest  whim  in  the 
black  eyes,  and  such  dimples!  and  such  smile! 
Only  the  face,  and  a  cautious  hand  drawing  the 
leafy  curtain,  but  you  know  the  whole  lissome 
poise  of  her  nymph's  body,  its  wariness  and 
spring.  "  Dry  as!  Breath  of  the  fragrant  wood! 
Laughter  of  many-tongued  trees !  Lure  of  sylvan 
dell!  .  .  ."  Phrase  gathers  phrase,  and  though 
she  be  gone,  fleet  to  her  guarded  haunts,  she  is 
not  lost, —  still  she  is  yours,  all  her  radiant  grace, 
yours  to  possess  and  celebrate!  And  so  the  song 
grows. 

Oh,  to  be  sure,  we  concede  something  to  the 
commercial  motive — enhanced  conception  of  the 
virtue  of  industry  and  a  not  too  nice  doubting  of 


Esthetic  Expression         179 

inspirations,^ — and  we  concede  something  to  tlie 
artist's  vanity  and  hunger  for  applause  ;  but  we 
deny  that  the  first  is  more  than  a  weakness,  as  we 
deny  that  the  latter  —  Taine  to  the  contrary  not- 
withstanding—  is  the  artist's  ruling  passion. 
Neither  motive  differentiates  him  from  other  men 
nor  tells  how  he  comes  to  be  an  artist,  and  surely 
in  his  artistic  nature,  if  at  all,  must  be  found  the 
secret  and  motive  of  his  art.  Nor  does  the  didac- 
tic or  the  moralising  motive  give  due  account. 
Unquestionably  when  the  poet  is  moved  to  preach 
or  prophesy  he  does  so  in  the  language  most  elo- 
quently his  :  his  moral  passion  is  not  less  out- 
spoken than  any  of  the  other  passions  which  he 
shares  with  humankind.  But  it  is  not  this  or 
that  nature  of  the  passion  any  more  than  it  is  this 
or  that  character  of  the  idea  which  determines  the 
art.  Rather,  it  is  the  manner  of  the  expression, 
— always  provided  that  manner  be  understood  not 
as  a  style  of  word  or  colour  but  as  a  style  of  the 
man's  soul. 

And  here  we  pass  to  individual  motive,  fore- 
most flaunting  "Art  for  art's  sake."  M.  Souriau 
caustically  understands  this  "Art  for  the  sake  of 
virtuosity  ' ' ;  and  we  may  agree  with  him  in  the 
many  instances  where  the  phrase  is  but  a  sneer- 
ing apology  for  social  offence,  but  read  "Art  for 
the  sake  of  beauty,"  I  think  it  serves  to  desig- 
nate the  unique  and  self-sufficient  mission  of  in- 
terpretation of  beauty  among  human  activities. 
Still   the   designation  is  vague  ;   and  really  to 


i8o    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

understand  how  the  impulse  to  aesthetic  expres- 
sion can  be  accounted  for  in  the  created  beauty — 
beauty  be  aim  and  motive,  too,  — we  require  closer 
analysis  of  the  artistic  spirit. 

The  reader  will  recall  M.  Guyau's  characterisa- 
tion,— "  artistic  genius  is  a  form,  extraordinarily 
intense,  of  sympathy  and  sociability,  which  can 
satisfy  itself  only  in  creating  a  world  of  living  be- 
ings ";  and  it  is  hoped  that  later  discussions  may 
have  added  to  the  significance  of  this  definition. 
To  be  sure,  I  am  not  ready  to  agree  with  M. 
Guyau  in  the  sociological  turn  he  gives  his  inter- 
pretation, but  I  think  the  main  truth  is  not 
missed.  And  that  is  that  all  art  is  personifica- 
tion, vivification,  endowment  with  the  glow  of  life 
where  before  life  was  not.  "  Genius  is  a  power 
of  loving,  which,  like  all  veritable  love,  tends  en- 
ergetically to  fecundity  and  the  creation  of  life  ' ' ; 
and  we  conceive  the  work  of  art  as  expression  of 
this  love,  and  its  beaut}'-  as  the  breath  of  life 
which  the  artist  has  breathed  into  his  creation. 

Instinct  for  beauty  is  the  true  designation  of 
aesthetic  impulse.  This  we  may  interpret,  on  the 
part  of  the  imagination,  as  that  strong  life-expan- 
sion which  I  asserted  the  office  of  imagination  to 
be ;  on  the  part  of  the  emotional  nature,  as  re- 
sponse to  aesthetic  attraction, —  sympathy  and 
love  for  the  ideal  life  which  imagination  creates. 
This  is  not  unlike  the  moral  sympathy  and  love 
which  the  real  life  awakens,  but  it  is  stronger  and 
nearer  and  more  impulsive  because  it  exists  for  an 


Esthetic  Expression 


I8T 


ideal  which  is  a  part  of  ourselves, —  as  the  lover's 
adoration  of  his  mistress  exists  for  his  idealisation 
of  her.  Ivove  of  beauty  is  love  of  that  personality 
whereof  we  are  most  fain,  and  the  effort  to  create 
the  beautiful  is  an  effort  to  make  that  personality 
— broad  as  the  world  it  may  be — at  once  real  and 
our  own.  Esthetic  expression  is  the  self's  ex- 
pression, and  the  motive  to  it  is  that  need  for 
whole  life  which  from  the  beginning  seems  to 
have  been  the  motif  of  cosmic  evolution.  The 
emotional  token  of  this  need,  and  the  signal  to  the 
satisfying  action,  as  all  our  emotions  are  signals  to 
action,  is  our  yearning  for  beauty,  which,  in  an 
apotheosis  of  sympathy,  draws  us  forth  from 
ourselves  and  merges  our  life  with  that  which  is 
visioned. 

There  is,  I  know,  much  vanity  in  the  common 
way  of  bulwarking  one's  opinions  by  ex  post  facto 
renderings  of  a  master's  intent,  and  I  suppose  no 
thinker  has  of  tener  thus  been  outraged  than  Aris- 
totle; yet  whether  he  taught  full- wittingly  or  not, 
I  can  doubt  no  instinct  of  his  mind  less  than  that 
which  defined  art  as  imitation  of  life  and  found 
our  satisfaction  in  artistic  creation  due  to  recog- 
nition of  the  life  depicted,  I  do  not  believe  that 
he  fully  understood  the  nature  or  purpose  of  this 
life  nor  even  the  true  character  of  the  emotion  at- 
tending recognition, —  conceiving  it  as  a  pleasure 
rather  than  as  a  satisfaction  of  aesthetic  need  ;  but 
I  do  believe  that  he  saw  clearly  (as  how  few  critics 
since  have  seen!)  that  the  motive  and  intent  of 


1 82    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

aesthetic  expression  is  to  make  tangible  those  ideal 
patterns  which  no  human  soul  is  utterly  without. 

At  the  beginning  of  this  discussion  I  set  Mrs. 
Browning's  sonnet  of  The  SouV s  Expression,  hold- 
ing that  it  utters  the  truest  and  most  lasting  poetic 
motive.  At  the  close  I  would  set  the  story  of 
Caedmon  (best  from  Alfred's  Saxon),  holding  that 
it  embodies  the  noblest  type  of  poetic  inspiration 
and  that  the  life  of  this  early  English  poet  will 
ever  remain  a  rebuke  to  the  incomprehension  of 
critics,  a  consecration  of  their  right  to  the  poets 
of  his  race. 

In  the  monastery  of  that  abbess  was  a  certain  brother 
rarely  endowed  and  enworthed  with  God's  gifting.  For 
he  was  wont  to  compose  seemly  lays  that  wrought  for  holi- 
ness and  piety,  so  that  whatso  he  learned  from  book-wise 
men,  that,  after  a  little  time,  he  brought  forth  in  poetry 
of  the  utmost  sweetness  and  inspiration,  and  throughout 
in  English  speech.  And  because  of  his  lays  the  minds 
of  many  men  were  oft  stirred  to  scorn  of  the  world  and 
fired  with  yearning  for  the  heavenly  life. 

And  also  many  others  after  him  among  English  folk 
began  to  make  pious  lays,  but  yet  none  might  do  that 
like  unto  him  ;  for  not  at  all  was  it  from  men  nor  through 
the  wisdom  of  man  that  he  learned  that  lay-craft,  but 
he  was  divinely  holpen  and  through  God's  gift  received 
his  song-might.  Wherefore  he  could  never  make  aught 
leasing  or  idle  lays,  but  even  those  alone  which  lead 
to  holiness  and  which  it  became  his  pious  tongue  to 
sing. 

Now  abode  this  man  in  worldhood  till  the  time  that 
he  was  mature  in  years.     And  he  had  never  leawed  any 


Esthetic  Expression  183 

lays  ;  and  because  of  this  oft  at  the  ale-bout,  when  it  was 
deemed  for  the  sake  of  joyance  that  they  all,  turn  by 
turn,  should  sing  to  the  harp,  when  he  saw  the  harp  draw 
anigh  him,  then  arose  he  for  shame  from  the  feast  and 
went  home  to  his  house.  And  on  a  certain  time  when  he 
so  did,  when  he  left  the  house  of  the  ale-bout  and  was 
come  thence  to  the  neat-stall  whereof  the  warding  that 
night  was  bidden  him,  then  at  the  resting-tide  he  set  his 
limbs  to  rest.  And  in  a  dream  there  stood  before  him  a 
certain  man,  and  hailed  him  and  greeted  him  and  called 
him  by  his  name : 

"  Caedmon,  sing  me  somewhat." 

Then  answered  he  and  quoth  :  "Nought  can  I  sing, 
and  even  for  that  I  went  out  from  the  ale-bout,  and  hither 
gat  me,  because  I  could  not." 

Eft  he  quoth,  he  that  was  speaking  with  him  :    '  'Never- 
theless thou  canst  sing  to  me." 
Quoth  he :  "  What  shall  I  sing  ? 
Quoth  he :  "vSing  the  First-Shaping." 
When  he  received  this  answer  then  began  he  soon  to 
sing  in  praise  of  God's  handiwork,  word  and  verse  that 
he  never  had  heard.     And  the  order  thereof  is  this  : 
Lo,  we  shall  laud  Heaven-realm's  Lord, 
The  Maker's  might  and  His  mind's  thought, 
The  works  of  the  Father  !     Wonder  with  wonder, 
He,  the  Eternal,  established  a  world  ! 
First  for  earth's  children  reared  as  a  roof 
The  high  dome  of  Heaven — Holy  Creator  ! 
Made,  then,  the  mid-earth— Warder  of  Men, 
Lord  Everlasting!     Thereafter  the  land, 
A  fold  for  us  fitted— Father  Almighty  ! 
Then  he  arose  from  his  sleep,  and  all  that  which  sleep- 
ing he  had  sung  he  held  fast  in  mind  ;  and  soon  he  added 
to  these  words  many  of  their  ilk,  of  song  worthy  of  God. 
And  on  the  morn  he  came  to  the  town-reeve,  him  that 
was  his  ealdorman,  and  told  him  what  gift  he  had  re- 


1 84    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

ceived,  whereupon  that  one  led  him  to  the  abbess  and 
spoke  and  told  her  thereof.  Then  she  bade  them  assem- 
ble all  the  learned  men  and  the  scholars,  and  he  being 
brought  before  them,  she  bade  him  tell  his  dream  and 
sing  the  lay,  that  by  their  dooming  it  might  be  known 
why  or  whence  it  were  come.  And  it  was  seen  by  them 
all  howso  it  was  that  the  heavenly  gift  was  given  him  by 
the  Lord  Himself.  Then  they  told  him  an  holy  tale  and 
expounded  word  of  godly  lore,  and  bade  him,  if  he  could, 
that  he  turn  somewhat  of  it  into  lay-song  and  sing  to 
them.  And  when  he  had  received  this  matter,  then  went 
he  home  to  his  house,  and  he  came  again  on  the  morrow, 
and  in  a  lay  the  best  adorned  he  sang  to  them  and  gave 
forth  that  which  was  bidden  him. 

Then  began  that  abbess  to  cherish  and  love  God's  gift 
in  that  man,  and  she  prayed  and  exhorted  him  that  he 
turn  from  worldhood  and  take  on  monkhood.  And  he 
liked  that  well ;  so  she  took  him  into  that  monastery  and 
joined  him  to  the  assemblage  of  God's  servants.  And 
she  bade  him  learn  tale  and  story  of  Holy  Writ ;  and  of 
all  that  in  hearing  he  might  learn  he  was  mindful,  and 
even  as  a  clean  neat  ruminating  he  turned  it  into  sweet- 
est song.  And  his  songs  and  his  lays  were  so  winsome  to 
hear  that  his  teachers  themselves  wrote  and  learned  from 
his  mouth. 

Sang  he  first  the  mid-earth's  shaping  and  the  begin- 
ning of  mankind  and  all  that  story  of  Genesis  which  is 
the  first  book  of  Moses.  And  eft  the  outgoing  of  Is- 
rael's folk  from  Egyptian  lands,  and  the  ingoing  into 
the  Promised  Land.  And  of  many  another  tale  of  Holy 
Writ's  canonical  books,  and  of  Christ's  humanhood  and 
His  suffering  and  His  ascension  into  Heaven,  and  of  the 
coming  of  the  Holy  Ghost,  and  of  the  Apostle's  lore. 
And  eft  of  the  fear  of  toward  doom  and  fright  of  tor- 
ment wights,  and  of  the  sweetness  of  the  Heavenly  King- 
dom he  wrought  many  lays.     In  all   these  he  sought 


Esthetic  Expression  185 

yearningly  that  he  might  wean  men  from  love  of  sin  and 
evil  deed  and  win  them  to  love  and  desire  of  godly  deed, 
— for  he  was  a  man  very  pious,  and  yielded  him  rigor- 
ously and  humbly  to  discipline  ;  but  against  those  that 
would  do  in  other  wise  he  was  inflamed  as  with  a  flood  of 
noble  wrath.  And  because  of  this  he  made  a  fair  end  to 
his  life. 

For  when  it  drew  nigh  to  the  time  of  his  departure  and 
forthfaring,  then  were  there  fourteen  days  ere  that  that 
he  was  vexed  and  awearied  by  bodily  ills,  yet  in  such 
measure  that  all  that  time  he  could  both  speak  and  go 
about.  There  was  near  by  a  house  for  untrim  men, 
whither  their  custom  was  that  they  should  lead  the  un- 
trim and  those  that  were  near  forthfaring  and  tend  them 
there  together.  Then  bade  he  his  thane,  on  the  eve  of 
the  night  that  he  was  going  from  the  world,  that  he 
should  make  ready  a  place  for  him  in  that  house  that  he 
might  rest.  And  the  thane  wondered  wherefore  he  thus 
bade  him,  for  he  thought  his  forthfaring  were  not  so  nigh. 
Yet  he  did  whatso  he  was  bidden. 

And  after  this  he  went  there  to  rest,  and  he  was  joyous 
in  mood,  speaking  and  jesting  together  with  those  that 
were  therein  before  him.  But  when  it  was  past  midnight 
he  asked  whether  they  had  any  housel.  Then  answered 
they  and  quoth  : 

"  What  need  is  the  housel  ?  Surely  thy  forthfaring  is 
not  so  nigh,  now  thou  thus  joyously  and  gladly  art  speak- 
ing to  us." 

Quoth  he  eft :     "Yet  bring  ye  me  the  housel." 

When  he  had  it  in  hand,  then  he  asked  whether  they 
all  were  of  gentle  mind  and  without  any  ill-will  were 
blithe  toward  him.  Then  answered  they  all  and  quoth 
that  they  wist  of  no  ill-will,  but  that  they  were  all  very 
blithe-minded  toward  him  ;  and  in  turn  they  prayed  him 
that  he  be  blithe  toward  them  all.  Then  answered  he 
and  quoth : 


1 86    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

"My  brothers  lief,  I  am  very  blithe-minded  toward 
you  and  toward  all  of  God's  men." 

And  so  he  was  eased  with  the  heavenly  way-help,  and 
made  ready  for  entrance  into  that  other  life.     Then  yet 
he  asked    how  near  was  that  tide  when  the  brothers 
should  arise  and  sing  the  matin-song. 
Answered  they  :  "It  is  not  far  to  that." 
Quoth  he  :  "  It  is  well,  let  us  abide  that  tide." 
And  he  prayed  for  himself,  and  signed  himself  with 
Christ's  rood-token,  and  he  rested  his  head  on  the  bol- 
ster, and  in  a  little  while  fell  asleep.    And  so  mid  stillness 
his  life  ended. 

And  thus  was  it  come  to  pass  that  even  as  with  clear 
mind  and  with  gentle  and  joyous  devotion  he  served  his 
Lord,  so  also  was  his  leaving  of  this  mid-earth  a  joyous 
death.  And  the  tongue  that  had  uttered  so  many  words 
in  love  of  the  Maker,  uttered  also  its  last  word  in  His 
praise,  and  he  went  forth  crossing  himself  and  commend- 
ing his  spirit  into  His  hands. 


I 


CHAPTER  VII 

BEAUTY  AND  PERSONALITY 
I — THE  SUBJECTIVITY   OF  THE   BEAUTIFUL 

AT  the  risk  of  seriously  offending  the  reader's 
logical  sensibility  I  have  assumed  more 
than  once  in  past  discussions  the  essential  sub- 
jectivity of  beauty  and  have  used  this  assumption 
as  ground  and  premiss  for  conclusions  drawn. 
But  the  truth  of  the  assumption  is  by  no  means 
self  evident;  indeed,  it  is  likely  to  encounter  perti- 
nent questioning,  and  may  no  longer  be  sustained 
without  some  justification.  I  will  not  undertake 
the  vexatious  question  of  the  proper  distinction 
of  subjective  and  objective  (there  are  many  and 
many  ambiguities  of  these  terms),  but  I  would 
make  clear  in  what  meanings  I  have  used  them, 
and  especially  the  sense  in  which  beauty  is  sub- 
jective and  the  sense  in  which  it  is  objective, — or 
rather,  objectified,  since  with  each  of  us,  as  it 
grows  and  is  revealed,  the  beautiful  becomes  in- 
terwrought  with  that  majestic  stability  of  Nature 
which  we  count  her  objectivity. 

Beauty  as  manifested  in  art  has  most  of  all  been 
187 


1 88    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

held  to  possess  a  peculiarly  intimate,  subjective 
nature  ;  for  though  at  first  sight  a  painting,  a 
statue,  an  architectural  achievement,  even  an 
opera  or  an  epic,  seems  not  less  external  and  ob- 
jective than  the  phantasmagoria  of  fleeting  phe- 
nomena which  commonly  we  call  the  natural  or 
the  practical  world,  still  when  we  attempt  to 
identify  the  beauty  of  the  work,  we  can  refer 
only  to  some  charm  for  the  sympathetic  mind  and 
we  can  define  it  only  in  the  language  of  apprecia- 
tion. Nevertheless  there  are  not  wanting  thinkers 
(quick  to  snatch  a  vantage  from  defeat)  who  main- 
tain that  the  whole  of  the  subjectivity  of  art  lies 
in  our  lack  of  accord  in  adjudging  station  and 
character  to  artistic  accomplishment;  that,  but  for 
our  disagreements  concerning  them,  aesthetic  ob- 
jects would  be  as  inevitably  external  and  as  stably 
real  as  are  walls  and  building-stones  or  whatever 
else  is  too  solidly  fact  to  be  argued  about.  The 
force  of  this  position  is  accentuated  when  we  con- 
sider the  beautiful  in  Nature  ;  for  it  is  not  easy 
to  discriminate  the  objectivity  of  mere  Nature 
from  that  of  beautiful  Nature,  nor  can  aesthetic 
appreciation  of  the  latter  be  generically  distin- 
guished from  aesthetic  appreciation  of  the  beautiful 
in  art.  On  this  view,  the  relativity  of  art,  or  per- 
haps I  had  better  say  of  beauty,  is  taken  to  be  due 
to  the  limitation  of  its  appeal.  Granting  a  uni- 
versal and  unquestioning  recognition  of  any  in- 
carnation of  beauty,  that  incarnation  would  be 
the  actual  beautiful,  as  objective  and  inevitable  as 


Beauty  and  Personality       189 

sunlight.  Accordingly,  beauty  is  objective  and 
real  just  in  proportion  to  its  universality.  If  in 
fact  we  find  the  aesthetic  experience  individual 
and  variable,  this  is  only  expression  of  its  imper- 
fection as  compared  with  insight  into  truth,  which 
admits  of  no  such  variability.  Possibly,  also,  it 
is  expression  of  the  relative  tardiness  of  the  de- 
velopment of  aesthetic  perception. 

To  add  weight  to  this,  let  us  say,  scientific  con- 
ception of  the  aesthetic,  we  have  but  to  note  how 
the  practice  and  tendency  of  criticism  is  to  rely 
more  and  more  upon  consensus  of  acclaim,  espe- 
cially upon  opinion  seasoned  by  years,  less  and 
less  upon  the  critic's  individual  right.  Herein  it 
may  be  seen  how  well  founded,  how  well  attested 
by  experience,  may  be  a  theory  which  finds  beauty 
to  be  only  imperfect  truth.  Doubtless  the  critics 
would  be  most  of  all  surprised  at  this  inference 
from  their  habit,  but  it  is  none  the  less  certainly 
implied  therein. 

We  must,  indeed,  grant  that  in  this  limited  as- 
pect beauty  is  relative  truth  and  relative  precisely 
in  proportion  to  its  want  of  universality.  We 
must  grant,  too,  that  it  is  objective,  in  reverse 
proportion;  for  objectivity,  best  conceived,  means 
only  freedom  from  the  personal,  differentiating 
equation.  Yet  granting  this,  we  have  not  done 
away  with  that  important  distinction  between 
mere  Nature  and  beautiful  Nature,  between  ex- 
perience of  truth  and  experience  of  beauty.  The 
two  are  wholly  diverse,  nor  can  they  be  defined 


I  go    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

in  the  same  language.  Perhaps  we  may  best 
come  at  this  through  consideration  of  the  aesthetic 
experience.  We  must  take  it  first  as  a  feature  of 
individual  psychology  and  then  compare  it  with 
apprehension  of  truth  and  with  perception  of 
things.  The  three  types  of  experience  stand  out 
in  unmistakable  distinction.  E)ven  when  we  have 
all  three  centred  upon  a  common  object  there  is 
no  over-lapping.  We  perceive  a  painted  canvas, 
the  bare  fact ;  we  feel  the  beauty  of  a  Raphael's 
Madonna  ;  we  apprehend  the  truth  of  which  the 
painting  is  token  and  expression.  The  canvas 
can  be  touched;  in  the  beauty  we  may  rest  con- 
tent; the  truth  may  be  formulated  in  propositions: 
but  no  one  of  the  three  is  indistinct  because  of  the 
existence  of  the  others.  And  yet  all  three  belong 
to  one  experience  within  which  they  are  differ- 
entiated. Moreover,  the  very  fact  of  evolution 
from  a  common  source  points  to  a  generic  and 
fundamental  sameness;  they  are,  indeed,  grades 
of  one  elemental  complex  which  is  the  material 
cause  of  all  the  life  and  colour  of  our  experience 
and  of  the  reality  of  our  world.  Because  of  this 
common  origin,  each  of  the  three  types  of  experi- 
ence shades  into  the  others ;  there  are  no  sharp 
boundaries.  Hence  arises  the  diflficulty  of  proper 
definition  and  distinction  even  while  our  immedi- 
ate impressions  give  instinctive  evidence  of  the 
reality  of  the  divergence. 

In  face  of  this  diflSculty  we  may  most  readily 
find  a  satisfying  basis  for  our  demarcation — and 


Beauty  and  Personality       191 

so  a  rational  justification  for  our  instinctive  judg- 
ment— by  defining  each  type  of  experience  in 
terms  of  its  function  ;  for  it  is  assuredly  altogether 
by  reason  of  biological  function  and  need  that 
their  differentiation  has  been  achieved.  In  this 
light,  it  is  plain  enough  that  the  bare  fact,  the 
phenomenal  thing  proximately  present  to  us,  is 
the  object  of  vital  interest.  By  dint  of  long  re- 
finement during  evolutional  aeons  our  senses  have 
been  opened  to  direct  perception  of  such  things  as 
are  significant  to  the  welfare  and  preservation  of 
the  human  organism.  Such  things  are  the  things 
of  sense,  the  clangs  and  colours,  pushes  and  pricks 
of  everyday  life;  and  they  may  properly  be  called 
facts  of  vital  interest.  But  in  the  course  of 
evolution  the  human  race  has  enormously  out- 
stripped all  animal  competitors.  And  why  ?  By 
reason  of  intellect,  we  say,  and  therein  we  mean 
by  reason  of  apprehension  of  truth.  For  truth  is 
nothing  but  abbreviated  and  schematic  represen- 
tation of  facts,  especially  in  their  historical  aspect. 
Truth  is  abstraction  of  the  universal  and  persis- 
tent in  reality,  and  its  purpose  is  to  put  us  into 
position  to  predict,  on  analogy  with  the  remem- 
bered past,  what  is  likely  to  happen  in  the  future. 
This  power  of  predicting  and  forecasting,  this  pro- 
jection of  bare  fact  by  means  of  mental  symbols,  is 
what  enables  us  to  scheme  and  plan,  take  time  by 
the  forelock  and  conquer  adversity  by  anticipating 
it.  Apprehension  of  truth  is  not  essentially  dif- 
ferent in  function  from  perception  of  fact.     It  is, 


192    Poetry  and  the  Individual 

indeed,  but  an  extension  of  the  function  of  the 
latter,  and  the  purpose  of  both  is  to  enable  benefi- 
cent adjustment  with  our  not  too- accommodating 
environment. 

But  how  shall  aesthetic  perception  be  likened  to 
these  ?  What  utility  does  it  serve  ?  In  the  mere 
asking  of  the  question  the  individuality  of  the 
aesthetic  experience  stands  forth  with  unique  per- 
tinence. The  two  types  of  perception  which  v/e 
have  been  considering  comprise  perceptions  that 
incite  to  action;  that  is,  to  achievement  of  other 
perceptions  not  contained  in  the  stimulating  ob- 
ject. Their  suggestion  is  vicarious.  In  action 
thus  induced,  and  in  its  consequences,  is  realised 
that  benefit  to  the  organism  which  is  the  raison 
d'itre  of  the  perception ;  thus,  avoidance  of  danger 
is  biological  justification  for  perception  of  ap- 
proaching peril,  bodily  vigour  is  justification  for 
appetitive  enjoyment.  But  with  aesthetic  per- 
ception there  is  no  such  incitement  to  action. 
Rather  we  have  desire  centred  upon  the  continu- 
ance of  the  experience ;  the  object  of  interest 
testifies  its  own  worth  and  sufiiciency,  and  all 
the  justification  of  the  desire  that  we  can  find  lies 
in  its  object.  In  beauty  we  come  to  rest :  that  is 
perhaps  the  best  description  we  can  give  and  it  is 
sufiicient.  Plainly,  beauty  serves  no  utility  so 
long  as  utility  is  measured  wholly  by  perpetuity. 
It  may  have  arisen  as  a  utile  agent,  as  means  of 
preservation  or  an  inducement  to  propagation  ; 
but  in  its  full  flower  it  is  these  only  incidentally. 


Beauty  and  Personality       193 

if  at  all.  And  its  definition  must  not  be  sought 
in  what  has  occasioned  its  creation,  but  in  what  it 
is  as  we  know  it  in  experience.  There  we  find  it 
wholly  self-justifying  ;  it  asks  for  nothing  beyond 
itself ;  it  is  content  within  itself.  It  may  not  be 
too  bold  a  venture  to  assert  that  it  is  far  more 
than  this, —  that  it  is  the  final  justification  of  all 
fact  and  truth,  of  all  life.  For  fact  and  truth,  as 
we  have  just  seen,  rest  for  their  rationality  upon 
their  service  to  biological  well-being,  to  survival 
and  increase.  But  it  requires  small  reflection  to 
show  that  this  alone  is  not  adequate  rationality. 
Life  as  mere  physical  persistence  is  not  an  end  in 
itself  worth  the  cost.  Men  believe — and  without 
this  faith  there  could  be  no  progress — that  there  is 
a  finer  end,  a  nobler  worth,  which  in  itself  bears 
token  of  sufficiency  and  in  itself  expresses  the 
meaning  of  the  age-told  struggle  for  its  attain- 
ment. This  nobler  end  must  be  that  in  which 
we  can  rest  satisfied  that  it  alone  is  the  fine  gold 
from  the  smelting — and  it  is  always  the  beautiful. 
I  would  not  be  misunderstood.  I  would  not 
have  you  take  me  to  say  that  beauty  must  be  a 
static  thing.  On  the  contrary  it  is  ever  a  grow- 
ing wonder;  its  charm  lies  in  its  ceaseless  unfold- 
ing, its  ever  more  perfect  flowering.  But  it  is 
most  truly  a  flowering.  It  exists  as  an  aspira- 
tion, and  the  end  of  the  aspiration  is  always  the 
compassing  of  a  new  ideal  toward  which  it  may 
anew  aspire.  But  this  after  which  it  reaches  is 
not  sought  outside  the  beauty  itself ;  it  is  not  won 


194     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

by  addition  of  outward  increment.  Rather  it  is 
discovery  of  that  which  lies  hidden  within  the 
jealous  calyx  :  each  lifting  petal  exhales  a  new 
perfume,  discloses  daintier  flush,  or  reveals  un- 
suspected the  jewel  of  dew  that  gives  us  fresh 
delight.  So  it  is  that  beauty  always,  whether 
attained  through  appreciation  of  loveliness  vouch- 
safed us  or  through  expression  of  the  ideal  toward 
which  we  aspire,  exists  only  as  living  expansion 
into  ever  finer  worth. 

In  this  light  all  aesthetic  experience,  whether 
appreciative  or  constructive,  is  aspiration  toward 
an  ideal  which  yet  is  contained  within  the  aspira- 
tion itself.  The  beautiful  we  aspire  to  is  realised 
in  the  aspiration  and  it  grows  with  the  aspiration, 
an  effortless,  impulsive  growth.  And  this  is  so 
because  in  the  experience  of  beauty,  alone  of  all 
our  experiences,  the  ideal  and  the  real  are  one. 
Esthetic  experience,  then,  isobjectification  of  the 
ideal  life  which  man  ever  visions  as  his  own  better 
self  and  wish.  And  beauty  is  the  incarnating  of 
this  ideal  in  that  world-material  which  he  has  not 
as  yet  fully  appropriated,  which  he  has  not  vivi- 
fied with  a  life  such  as  his  nor  animated  with  hu- 
man aspiration.  He  calls  this  world-material  the 
objective  and  sets  it  over  against  a  subjective 
world  of  known  and  assimilated  things.  The  ob- 
jective world  is  strange  and  foreign,  full  of  puzzle 
and  uncertainty,  yet  full  of  possibility,  too,  and 
because  of  this  possibility  it  is  for  man  a  field  for 
conquest  and  appropriation  and  for  enlarged  do- 


Beauty  and  Personality       195 

main  of  spiritual  interest.  The  subjective  world 
contains  all  reality  that  belongs  to  the  self,  all 
that  is  enlivened  with  emotion,  tinged  and  hued 
with  mental  colour,  animated  with  desire  and 
idealisation.  Now  when  we  speak  of  beauty  as 
objectified  we  do  not  mean  that  it  has  become 
wholly  foreign  to  the  self  in  the  sense  in  which 
objective  material  is  foreign  to  us;  we  mean  rather 
that  this  foreign  reality  has  been  made  familiar 
and  intimate  by  reason  of  its  plastic  assumption 
of  that  ideal  best  which  renders  the  subjective  life 
in  our  eyes  a  life  of  worth.  The  ideal,  vague  as 
it  must  be,  is  what  we  live  for,  instinctively  striv- 
ing to  attain  it,  until,  perchance,  we  behold  it 
incarnate,  and  so  objectified,  in  whatever  reality 
seems  to  us  beautiful.  So  long  as  it  is  purely 
subjective  and  within  the  self,  it  is  not  seen  but 
only  blindly  felt  for ;  but  so  soon  as  it  is  shorn 
away  from  the  self,  we  perceive  it  as  beauty  and 
recognise  in  it  the  goal  of  our  aspiration.  Beauty 
is  thus  quite  as  truly  a  subjectification  of  reality 
beyond  the  self  as  it  is  objectification  of  that  self's 
ideal  life ;  yet  it  is  always  accompanied  by  a  de- 
personalisation  and  an  alienation  of  selfish  desire 
which  give  it  independence  hardly  less  absolute 
than  that  of  brute-foreign  fact.  Whether  it  shall 
be  conceived  more  like  objective  fact  or  more  a 
personal  possession  of  the  few  is  very  largely  de- 
termined by  the  extent  of  our  agreement  as  to  its 
charm.  An  embodiment  of  universal  aspirations 
will  be  universally  accounted  beautiful ;  but  an 


196     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

interpretation  of  an  ideal  felt  by  only  one  or  two 
will  not  be  esteemed  apart  from  the  personal 
equation. 

If  this  brief  analysis  is  clear  and  may  be  as- 
sented to,  it  will  be  seen  how  inevitably  expres- 
sion of  beauty  in  works  of  art  must  reflect  the 
psychology  of  the  artist.  The  ideal  life  is  never 
clearly  perceived  either  by  the  individual  or  by 
the  race,  nor  can  it  be  so  long  as  human  destiny  is 
hidden  from  us  and  the  purpose  of  human  exist- 
ence unrevealed;  yet  all  our  activities,  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  design  to  realise  it.  Aspiration 
toward  the  ideal  is,  indeed,  the  essence  of  our  in- 
stinct and  of  our  life,  and  its  fullest  attainment,  if 
the  attestation  of  conscious  fiat  be  valid,  is  to  be 
found  in  expressions  and  appreciations  of  beauty. 
But  the  ideal  itself  is  meaningless  save  as  a  char- 
acter and  form  toward  which  ou,r  experience  can 
and  must  evolve.  It  must  then  be  contained  po- 
tentially in  human  personality  and  in  the  sub- 
jective self.  That  its  expression  in  beauty  is 
impersonal  does  not  detract  from  the  value  of  the 
expression  as  an  index  of  psj^chical  character,  but 
rather  serves  to  render  such  character  clear  and  so 
gives  to  artistic  creations  a  prophetic  interest  over 
and  above  their  intrinsic  worth. 

II — TWH  QUALITY   OF   PERSONALITY 

I  have  written  in  vain  if  I  have  not  wrought 
the  conception  that  the  essence  of  beauty  is  to  be 


I 


Beauty  and  Personality       197 

found  in  personality,  but  at  the  same  time  I  trust 
that  I  have  not  left  unclear  the  impossibility  of 
narrowly  delimiting  that  personality.  As  the 
central  fact  of  human  life  it  embodies  the  com- 
plexity and  concealment  which  make  life  ration- 
ally so  unaccountable.  Whether  we  view  the 
world  in  a  Kantian  way  as  a  construction  of  mul- 
tifarious interwoven  experiences,  or,  with  the 
naive  realism  natural  to  us,  as  a  stable  and  inde- 
pendent habitat  wherein  mortals  uncomprehend- 
ingly  dwell,  there  is  yet  found  no  method  by 
which  to  unravel  the  snarl  of  human  reality  or  to 
define  the  proprietorship  of  the  human  soul.  In 
any  case,  we  have  as  an  outer  fabric  the  world  of 
sense,  the  world  of  ideas,  the  world  of  common 
understandings  and  differences,  with  one  another 
and  with  Nature  ;  but  this  outer  fabric  is  never 
more  than  the  soul's  vesture  ;  it  is  never  the  core 
of  personality,  nor  is  it  possessed  in  exclusive 
right  by  any  one  of  us;  it  is  but  the  ciliate  fringe 
of  our  reality,  shared  by  many  other  selves  beside 
our  own,  and  so  helping  to  form  that  mob- whole 
which,  after  all,  the  World  may  be.  The  core  of 
personality,  however,  cannot  be  contained  in  this 
vesturing  outer  world  :  it  is  found  neither  in  the 
domain  of  sense  nor  in  that  of  ideas  save  as  these 
ser\7^e  to  depict,  or  in  Aristotelian  sense,  to  imitate 
it.  The  real  personality  is  present  in  no  actual 
idea,  in  no  actual  perception  of  the  senses,  and  it 
is  only  in  a  series  of  ideas  or  perceptions  that  we 
grasp  some  notion  of  what  we  mean  by  it.     More- 


jgS     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

over,  the  series  can  at  no  time  be  wholly  existent, 
being  never  simultaneous  throughout,  so  that 
even  a  complete  incarnation  of  personality  is  de- 
nied us  ;  its  presentation  must  always  be  in  a  bio- 
graphic mode.  In  our  conception  of  it,  therefore, 
it  takes  rather  the  form  of  a  centre  of  creative  en- 
ergy, or  of  a  creative  purpose  operating  through 
the  incarnating  series  to  the  end  that  the  series 
shall  achieve  the  unity  and  sanity  of  an  organic 
whole.  If  it  seem  incredible  that  such  a  centre 
of  energy  or  such  a  purpose  should  be  the  gist  of 
our  personality  and  yet  be  concealed  from  us,  I 
can  only  answer  with  appeal  to  the  fact  :  for  how 
else  do  we  define  personality  except  by  an  esti- 
mate of  purposes  and  motive  forces  dominating 
(as  its  philosophy,  we  might  say)  the  history  of 
the  plausible  consciousness  ? 

But  being  so  concealed,  what  concerning  it 
should  be  required  of  us  ?  Two  things,  fairly. 
The  one  is  some  account  of  that  organic  unity 
which  is  the  real  and  familiar  incarnation  of  per- 
sonality and  the  ground  for  our  inference  of  its 
determining  role.  The  other  is  warrant  for  the 
validity  of  our  judgments  regarding  imitations  or 
embodiments  of  personality, —  in  other  words,  the 
seat  of  authority  in  questions  of  human  nature. 

Touching  a  matter  so  complex  as  organic 
unity,  definition  is  more  than  ever  to  be  depre- 
cated. Clear-cut,  palpable  conceptions  are  usu- 
ally, and  justly,  suspected  of  superficiality.  The 
reason  lies  in  the  nature  of  definition,  which  is 


Beauty  and  Personality       199 

merely  a  digest  of  abstractions,  each  of  them  be- 
ing obtained  only  by  disregard  of  other  elements 
of  the  reality  defined,  so  that  the  whole  defining 
group  afibrds  but  the  meagrest  representation  of 
the  reality.  For  its  purpose,  which  is  merely 
identification,  a  definition  gains  utility  in  propor- 
tion as  it  simplifies  by  disregardance  of  elements; 
but  manifestly  it  can  never  serve  as  a  reasonable 
account  of  any  reality.  Where  the  presence  or 
absence  of  a  quality  or  character  is  not  in  ques- 
tion, definition  is  futile.  The  existence  of  per- 
sonality like  the  existence  of  the  universe  (and 
who  would  define  the  universe  ?)  is  recognised  in 
the  mere  designation  of  it.  Hearing  the  term,  we 
apprehend  what  is  signified;  no  multiplication  of 
predicates  can  give  us  more. 

But  if  not  called  upon  to  define  personalitj',  still 
we  may  aim  to  give  some  general  notion  of  its 
contour;  we  may  at  least  chart  its  boundaries. 
And  to  do  this,  within  the  restricted  field  of  aes- 
thetic experience,  has  been  my  endeavour  in  the 
discussion  of  imagination  and  its  work.  I  have 
aimed  to  gain  some  conception  of  the  assimilation 
and  transformation  of  reality  which  is  the  essential 
nature  of  imaginative  activity,  and  I  have  tried 
to  show  that  this  activity  is  directed  by  a  will  or 
mofzy  which  gives  it  orientation  and  consistency. 
Rarely  is  this  motif  a  conscious  factor,  for  in  con- 
sciousness it  yields  place  to  manifold  motives 
of  the  moment  as  helplessly  unstable  as  a  child's 
fancies  or  desires;   but  for  all  that  its  presence 


200     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

is  felt;  it  is  the  creator  of  the  whole  life's  impres- 
sion, and  by  its  success  in  making  the  course 
of  the  life's  events  consistent  and  articulate  we 
estimate  character  and  sanity.  It  is  so  that  we 
judge  when  on  the  test  of  a  certain  familiar  im- 
pression of  an  artist's  custom  or  style  we  classify 
whatever  in  his  work  seems  out  of  accord  with 
this  impression  as  aberrant  and  not  native  to  his 
genius,  and  again  so  when  we  ascribe  a  relatively 
constant  character  to  everyone  with  whom  we 
come  frequently  in  contact ;  we  create  for  each 
an  ideal  self,  and  by  his  conformance  to  this 
ideal  judge  his  normality. 

No  matter  how  strongly  we  feel  this  impression 
of  character, —  and  almost  invariably  it  is  vivid, 
— usually  we  are  unable  to  analyse  it.  More 
likely  than  not  it  may  seemingly  contradict  the 
evidence  of  our  senses,  and  in  any  case  our  judg- 
ments appear  to  refer  not  to  the  reality  that  exists 
in  the  expression,  but  to  a  subtler,  more  appeal- 
ing character  there  hinted  rather  than  portrayed. 
There  is  a  mysterious  double  entendre  in  all  ex- 
pression, reduplicating  the  equivocacy  of  life. 
Possibly  it  is  due  to  our  ready  allowance  for  the 
bafflements  arising  from  the  obstinacy  of  the  ma- 
terial medium  ;  we  come  instinctively  to  regard 
personalities  as  constantly  thwarted  and  over- 
borne in  their  attempts  at  real  effectiveness ;  we 
form  a  habit  of  judging  them  by  their  promise  as 
much  as  by  their  achievement,  recognising  how 
all  of  them,  at  one  or  at  many  points,  conflict 


Beauty  and  Personality       201 

with  an  external  order  of  nature  which  acts 
counter  to  their  design  and  moulds  them  to  some 
degree  of  outward  falsity.  Life  is  a  series  of 
compromises  between  adverse  interests,  and  all 
that  orderly  balance  of  conventions  which  forms 
its  viodus  Vivendi  is  only  the  cunningest  of  mas- 
querades ;  the  open  and  patent  reality  is  almost 
invariably  the  least  truthful;  to  get  at  the  heart 
of  the  world  we  must  reckon  its  powers  rather 
than  its  events.  At  once  the  farce  and  the  tragedy 
of  human  nature  is  our  lack  of  sympathy  with  one 
another  ;  on  the  one  hand  we  are  led  into  conceal- 
ment and  caution,  on  the  other  into  all  the  wistful 
vanity  of  our  efforts  to  understand.  Nature  has 
given  us  a  strangely  impossible  role  :  to  work  the 
will  of  a  growing  personality  against  the  opposi- 
tion of  her  own  impervious  system.  And  we,  in 
a  measure,  achieve  the  impossible  ;  but  we  do  so 
wholly  by  denying  the  manifest  fact  for  the  sake 
of  an  ideal  fact  which  we  interpret  as  its  meaning. 

There  is  always  the  double  understanding  of 
reality,  and  it  is  the  failure  rather  than  the  suc- 
cess of  acts  and  purposes  that  we  account  the  real 
measure  of  character.  The  true  self,  to  which 
we  are  never  quite  true,  inspires  us  with  a  saving 
faith  in  human  potentiality. 

This  is  a  habit  of  judgment  so  natural  and  uni- 
versal that  it  needs  no  exposition.  Any  ade- 
quate biography,  any  sincere  critique,  furnishes 
instance;  the  man's  ideals  measure  the  man  as 
they  set  the  limitation  of  his  art,  but  neither  the 


202     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

flesh  nor  the  art  ever  adequately  embodies  these 
ideals;  they  are  balked  by  Nature's  unsympathy; 
and  so  it  is  that  we  do  not  estimate  any  person- 
ality without  allowing  for  the  falsifying  tendency 
of  the  material  of  the  incarnation.  The  greatest 
personalities  are  the  most  falsified;  for  what  they 
have  to  impress  upon  the  world  is  what  is  most 
at  variance  with  its  possessions  and  hence  with  its 
sympathies.  The  history  of  genius  is  a  history  of 
innovation,  but  always  of  innovations  that  par- 
tially fail ;  great  as  may  be  the  achievement,  its 
promise  is  greater. 

In  the  specious  reality  of  ordinary  experience, 
then,  personality  appears  only  in  dim,  inchoate 
shadowings.  The  world  of  fact  is  but  a  tissue  of 
illustration  which  the  artist  touches  with  uncer- 
tain pencil ;  the  intended  form  we  guess  as  we 
may.  Now  of  all  our  activities  aesthetic  expres- 
sion is  freest  from  untoward  trammelling,  for  here 
Nature  gives  the  smallest  portion  of  the  creation, 
the  human  spirit  gives  the  largest:  the  ideal  is  the 
only  end  of  the  created  thing,  perception  of  the 
ideal  is  its  only  test.  Furthermore,  in  aesthetic 
expression  the  accidents  of  character  and  the 
ephemeral  consciousness  are  least  in  evidence  ;  it 
is  the  spontaneous,  self-surprising  element  which 
dominates,  and,  under  the  guidance  of  the  in- 
ternal will,  the  ultimate  habits  and  purposes  of 
character  which  are  most  of  all  made  manifest. 

This  superlative  expressiveness  of  art  belongs 
to  it  as  the  form  of  human  activity  which  exists 


Beauty  and  Personality       203 

most  exclusively  for  self-realisation.  Pursuit  of 
practical  ends  oftener  conceals  than  makes  clear 
final  purposes.  We  allow  for  such  purposes, 
reckoning  that  they  must  be  something  nobler 
than  the  ends  seem;  and  if  we  find  them  absent 
and  the  practical  end  really  self-sufficient — say, 
the  money-getter's  greed — we  feel  our  conception 
of  human  nature  outraged  by  the  presence  of 
spiritual  deformit3^  Similarly  the  pursuit  of 
pleasure, —  it  represents  the  merest  cobweb  of  ex- 
istence, to  be  understood  only  as  a  feeble  sport  of 
tyrannising  Nature.  With  moral  effectiveness, 
to  be  sure,  we  get  clues  to  genuine  character;  yet 
the  moral  world  is  a  partial  world  and  fenced  by 
myriad  conventions;  none  but  the  hardiest  natures 
can  break  through  to  free  development,  and  then 
only  with  something  of  the  finer  individuality 
obliterated,  with  the  more  sensitive  colouring 
lost. 

Such,  in  brief  rhimie,  is  the  circumscription  of 
personality  in  the  contradictory,  communal  world 
which  Nature  has  prescribed  for  it.  Its  existence 
is  wholly  an  object  of  inference  and  the  cogency 
of  the  inference  depends  wholly  upon  the  liveli- 
ness of  our  sympathies  :  personalities  seem  real  or 
unreal  to  us,  rich  or  impoverished,  according  to 
our  susceptibility  to  suggestion  and  our  powers 
of  reconstruction.  But  in  these  powers  them- 
selves there  is  evidence  of  another  type  ;  there  is 
an  inner  rationality  yet  to  be  taken  into  account. 
We  have  thus  far  dealt  with  personality  from  an 


204     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

external  point  of  view  ;  we  have  yet  to  interpret 
its  evidence  in  ourselves. 

From  the  subjective  side  the  conception  of  per- 
sonality must  be  approached  by  a  consideration 
of  intelligibility.  Ordinarily,  in  the  practical  or 
in  the  conceptual  world,  by  rendering  intelligible 
we  mean  either  adapting  to  human  need  or  amal- 
gamating with  the  whole  body  of  human  know- 
ledge (but  an  obscurer  form  of  adaptation  to  need). 
For  example,  seeing  a  mysterious  rosiness  in 
northern  skies,  observation  may  convince  us  that 
it  is  due  to  a  burning  building  or  that  it  is  an 
aurora  borealis.  In  either  case,  if  our  interest  is 
merely  practical,  we  feel  that  we  have  explained 
the  light ;  we  cease  to  be  curious  concerning  its 
nature  ;  the  mysteriousness  vanishes ;  the  phe- 
nomenon is  classed  with  similar  happenings  in  our 
experience  and  we  understand  what  it  requires 
of  us,  whether  immediate  action  or  indifference, 
and  so  we  say  that  it  has  been  made  intelligible 
to  us.  If  our  interest  be  livelier,  we  may  be  less 
easily  satisfied  ;  we  may  be  anxious  to  know  the 
cause  of  the  fire,  or  the  elements  which  occasion 
the  hue  of  combustion,  or  again  we  may  be 
frankly  confronted  with  the  puzzle  of  the  aurora 
— its  relation  to  magnetic  and  electrical  phenom- 
ena or  to  spots  on  the  sun.  Yet  in  any  case  a 
conceivable  similarity  with  phenomena  elsewhere 
experienced  will  seem  to  clear  away  the  puzzle. 
We  will  find  a  place  for  the  new  appearance  in  our 
general  scheme  of  reality  ;  we  will  align  it  with 


Beauty  and  Personality       205 

our  theory  of  natural  processes,  and  so  finding  it 
accounted  for,  our  curiosity  will  be  quieted. 

This  is  what  is  meant  by  intelligibility  in  the 
ordinary  search  for  causes  and  reasons.  It  is  the 
process  of  thought  by  which  we  make  our  sci- 
ences and  construct  our  truth  ;  for  truth  is  not  so 
much  discovered  as  created,  its  essential  nature 
being  an  accord  of  the  fact  judged  true  with  the 
order  of  nature  in  which  we  have  come  to  believe. 
But  the  character  of  this  belief  and  the  reason 
for  its  satisfactoriness  is  yet  to  seek.  Now  the 
principle  of  belief,  which  is  the  principle  of  the 
suflScient  reason,  I  take  to  be  interpretation  in 
human  motive  and  habit.  Our  wills  and  desires, 
our  perceptions  and  feelings  are  taken  by  us  to  be 
the  models  upon  which  we  measure  foreign-seem- 
ing reality  and  in  the  mould  of  which  we  recast  it 
in  order  to  make  it  intelligible  reality.  Just  as 
the  inch  was  originally  the  length  of  a  man's 
thumb-joint,  just  as  the  foot-pound  represents  an 
exertion  of  force  easily  reproduced,  thus  translat- 
ing extra-bodily  dimension  or  effectiveness  into 
terms  of  bodily  experience,  so  the  whole  world  is 
exp'.ained  by  personification.  We  can  conceive 
a  I  lagnetic  or  a  chemical  attraction  because  we 
have  felt  ourselves  drawn  by  attractions — appeti- 
tive, hypnotic,  aesthetic  ;  we  believe  that  we  un- 
derstand the  forces  of  nature  in  so  far  as  we  are 
able  to  liken  them  to  the  forces  that  we  exert,  and 
the  intelligibility  of  the  world  as  a  whole  exists 
for  us  only  as  the  world  seems  to  be  actuated  by 


2o6     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

purposes  and  plans  like  to  ours.  We  animate  it 
with  human  life  in  order  to  rescue  it  from  chaos, 
ever  repeating  the  parable  of  Genesis,  and  thereby 
we  make  its  reality  credible.  Similarly  we  un- 
derstand our  neighbours  by  translating  their  ac- 
tions into  motives  ;  that  is  to  say,  by  reading  into 
their  lives  our  lives,  into  their  personalities  our 
personalities.  And  necessarily  the  individual  per- 
sonality always  sets  the  limit  to  the  individual 
understanding  ;  its  catholicity  is  the  measure  of 
intelligence,  the  power  and  sufficiency  of  our 
reason. 

There  must  be  no  restricting  of  this  personality 
to  the  individual  consciousness.  I  cannot  repeat 
too  often  that  its  character  is  more  inclusive  than 
any  of  which  consciousness  gives  account.  Even 
in  reasoning  we  often  judge  instinctively,  with  no 
conscious  presentation  of  premisses,  and  our  con- 
fidence in  the  validity  of  such  judgments  is  likely 
to  be  the  stronger  with  the  impulsiveness  of  the 
instinct.  Neither  in  its  specific  content  nor  in  its 
history  does  consciousness  furnish  all  thj  ele- 
ments of  understanding  ;  many  of  these  ve  do 
palpably  acquire,  but  many  another  appears  a  t  the 
need,  surprising  our  own  intelligence,  as  if  cret  ted 
alchemically  in  some  dark  closet  of  the  mind.  In- 
tuitively we  judge  to  be  true  propositions  whose 
demonstration  had  never  been  dreamed, — remf-'m- 
beringly,  as  if  the  knowledge  were  indeed  wiiat 
Plato  supposed,  a  belated  recollection  from  some 
former  wiser  life. 


Beauty  and  Personality       207 

Human  personality,  then,  is  the  final  sufficient 
reason  in  judgments  of  fact  or  truth.  It  is  the 
final  sufficient  reason  in  j  udgments  of  beauty  also. 
And  these  latter  are  deeper-going  :  the  desire  that 
demands  satisfaction  is  more  insistent  and  com- 
prehensive, it  arises  in  a  lower  stratum  of  human 
nature,  and  it  alone  appeals  to  the  whole  nature. 
In  a  previous  discussion  I  contrasted  two  aspects 
of  unity — the  logical  or  truth  aspect  emphasising 
homogeneity,  and  the  aesthetic  aspect  emphasis- 
ing harmony  and  equilibrium.  Now  we  can  the 
better  see  why  the  first  of  these  seems  so  much 
the  poorer:  its  function  is  narrower,  its  vital  range 
is  restricted.  But  the  more  complex  unity  —  the 
'  unity  in  variety  '  of  the  critic,  the  organic  unity 
of  the  philosopher, —  does  it  not  derive  its  unique 
force  in  the  categories  of  the  understanding  be- 
cause it  is  the  abstract  pattern  of  life  ?  The  ideal 
case  of  its  realisation  is  in  the  ideal  personality. 
That  must  be  an  harmonious  and  balanced  per- 
sonality; it  must  be  strong  in  its  instincts,  but 
temperate  by  reason  of  its  catholic  inclusion  of  all 
instincts  that  are  worth  while  ;  it  must  be  a  grow- 
ing personality  and  in  the  unity  of  evolution  find 
its  supreme  category. 

We  use  this  unity  as  criterion  in  all  judgments 
of  art,  as  in  all  judgments  of  character.  Finding 
it  present,  the  picture,  no  matter  how  simple  its 
elements,  seems  true  to  life: 

Ther  was  also  a  Nonne,  a  Prioresse, 

That  of  hir  smylyng  was  ful  symple  and  coy ; 


2o8     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

Hir  gretteste  ooth  was  but  by  seynte  I/oy  ; 
And  she  was  cleped  madame  Eglentyne. 

Her  French 

After  the  scole  of  Stratford-atte-Bowe, — 

her  mannered  daintiness  and  conceit  of  courtly- 
airs  ;  her  tender  heart,  her  ' '  smale  houndes ' '  fed 

With  rested  flesh,  or  milk  and  wastel  breed, — 

till  finally,  the  picture : 

Ful  semely  hir  wimpel  pinched  was  ; 
Hir  nose  tretys ;  hir  eyen  greye  as  glas  ; 
Hir  mouth  ful  smal,  and  therto  softe  and  reed ; 
But  sikerly  she  hadde  a  fair  forheed, — 
It  was  almost  a  spanne  brood,  I  trowe  ; 
For,  hardily,  she  was  nat  undergrowe. 
Ful  fetys  was  hir  cloke,  as  I  was  war. 
Of  smal  coral  aboute  hir  arm  she  bar 
A  peire  of  bedes,  gauded  al  with  grene  ; 
And  theron  heng  a  brooche  of  gold  ful  shene, 
On  which  ther  was  first  write  a  crowned  A, 
And  after.  Amor  vincit  onuiia. 

One  cannot  meet  this  last  phrase,  which  gathers 
up  all  the  diverse  detail  and  crystallises  picture 
and  personality,  without  involuntarily  raising  the 
eyes  for  the  poet's  slyly  humorous  smile.  There 
is  no  gainsaying  the  truth  or  the  adequacy  of 
the  portrait,  nor  yet  the  eternal  individuality  of  the 
Prioress ;  and  so  it  is  with  the  Knight,  with  the 
Oxford  Clerk,  with  that  lusty  knave  the  Miller, 


Beauty  and  Personality       209 

with  her  of  Bath.  To  be  sure,  in  such  sitaple 
portraiture  we  have  not  the  highest  category  of 
unity — unity  in  growth, —  and  so  not  the  finest 
type  of  personaHty.  For  this  we  must  look  to 
those  forms  of  art,  the  drama  and  the  novel, 
which  alone  are  capable  of  imitating  Nature's 
evolutions.  Yet  no  art  which  is  real  can  be 
wholly  static  ;  there  is  always  an  instinct  vitality, 
a  hidden  potence, —  like  that  of  the  full  flower, 
which  the  sultry  listlessness  of  summer  days  can 
never  render  torpid.  Indeed  this  subtle  balance 
and  harmony  seems  requisite  for  our  simplest 
judgments  of  beauty.  Why  does  a  diamond- 
shaped  rectangle  appear  more  beautiful  than  a 
mere  square?  Is  it  not  that  the  suggestion  of 
living  force  in  nicelj'  equilibrated  objects  is  nearer 
to  man's  understanding  than  is  the  bare  strength 
of  stability  ?  And  so  the  fascination  of  sculptures, 
—  the  eternal  volancy  of  the  winged  Nike,  the 
immutable  agony  of  Laocoon,  the  immortal  witch- 
ery of  Venus  de  Milo  :  always  there  is  some  per- 
petuation of  tremulous  activity  or  of  evanescent 
mood  in  august  marble  or  bronze,  whereby  the 
living  moment  seems  to  conquer  natural  destinies 
and  decree  its  own  immortality. 

So  the  final  organon  of  intelligibility  and  the 
final  authority  for  all  our  judgments  is  the  in- 
stinctive vitality  of  personality;  but  there  re- 
mains to  ask,  What  is  the  occasion  of  its  authority 
and  the  warrant  of  its  validity  ?  I  think  the  ques- 
tion is  already  answered  ;  for  if  personality  is  the 


2IO     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

ideal  experience,  it  is  its  own  warrant.  Its 
existence  is  its  rationale ;  to  it  all  other  reasons 
refer.  We  judge  in  accordance  with  our  insight 
because  we  are  forced  to  believe  in  ourselves, — 
Nature  requires  that  much  of  us.  Faith  lies  at 
the  basis  of  our  every  j  udgment  as  of  our  every 
endeavour,  and  in  last  analysis  it  is  always  a  faith 
in  the  potency  and  real  worth  of  our  ideals.  That 
is  the  secret  spring  of  our  whole  activity  as  it  is 
for  each  of  us  the  only  possible  solvent  for  the 
mysteries  of  the  engulfing  Unknown. 

But  we  must  not  forget  that  human  personality 
never  wholly  exists  in  the  specious  consciousness, 
fragmentary,  day-to-day,  as  this  consciousness  is. 
We  are  seldom  quite  aware  of  our  own  motives; 
we  are  often  surprised  by  our  innate  beliefs.  In- 
spiration is  wholly  spontaneous  and  wholly  tyran- 
nous. In  ordinary  life  half  our  actions  defeat 
conscious  intention  because  of  unforeseen  revolts 
of  character.  So  in  our  judgments  :  apparently 
we  judge  as  we  will,  really  as  character  and  apti- 
tude force  us  to  judge.  Were  we  as  free  as  we 
feel  ourselves  to  be, — free,  that  is,  in  our  tempor- 
ising, palpable  consciousness, —  our  judgments 
would  be  as  unstable  and  unreliable  as  is  that 
consciousness  itself.  But  our  judgments  are  com- 
pelled, and  so  come  to  constitute  that  sameness  of 
the  whole  intelligence  which  makes  personality. 
Of  the  ultimate  nature  of  this  personality  not 
much  can  be  said.  I  have  described  it  as  indefin- 
able, but  I  have  also  tried  to  show  how  much  more 


Beauty  and  Personality       211 

real  it  is  than  those  mere  surfacings  of  the  soul 
which  take  form  in  ordinary  consciousness.  Per- 
sonality is  the  spirit  and  core  of  our  reaUty,  and 
our  every  victory  over  foreign  worlds  attests  its 
aggressive  zeal.  Whether  it  takes  specious  form 
in  moral  enthusiasm  or  in  vision  or  in  daemonic 
admonition  it  is  still  guide  and  leader  in  our 
struggle  with  destiny.  As  to  the  term  of  its  life, 
— that  we  can  but  guess  from  its  nature,  and  this 
I  have  sought  to  show  is  a  promise  which  no 
reality  fulfils  save  in  greater  promise,  an  aspira- 
tion which  no  attainment  satisfies  save  in  aspira- 
tion renewed.  Its  nature  is  to  look  forward,  to 
idealise,  and  like  the  ideal  its  only  adequate  pat- 
tern must  take  the  form  of  immortality. 


CHAPTER    VIII 
nature:  and  poetic  mood 

I — ANIMISM    AND   NATURE'S   WII.I, 

THERE  is  a  degree  of  speculative  intemperance 
in  the  mere  suggestion  of  Weltanschaimng 
which  excites  the  recipient  mind  to  wariness. 
And  if  the  world- vision  naively  come  at  the  close 
of  a  more  or  less  inductive  study,  it  is  not  without 
right  that  the  beholder  leaps  to  the  conclusion 
that  here  at  last  is  the  card  which  has  all  along 
been  in  hiding  up  the  expositor's  sleeve,  biding 
the  eflfective  moment  for  its  play.  Such  conclu- 
sion naturally  leads  to  critical  revision  of  all  pre- 
vious assents,  and  usually  (since  all  mortals  are 
combative  in  matters  metaphysical)  to  foreor- 
dained rejection  of  the  ostensible  revelation. 

I  preface  thus  that  the  reader  may  not  deem  me 
unconscious  of  disadvantage  in  certain  edgings  to- 
ward the  speculative  realm  which  I  feel  impelled 
to  take.  Likely  it  is  an  unfortunate  mind  that 
is  unable  to  introduce  new  andirons  without  re- 
furnishing the  whole  house  or  to  enter  upon  a  cas- 
ual critique  without  bringing  up  in  cosmology;  yet, 


Nature  and  Poetic  Mood      213 

pleading  the  fault,  I  cannot  but  feel  that  criticism, 
whether  of  art  or  of  life,  suffers  less  from  the 
rigour  of  metaphysical  searchings  than  from  need 
of  them.  Certainly  it  would  seem  that  the  more 
inclusive  view  should  be  the  saner,  and  when  we 
consider  that  even  our  cosmologies  are  but  features 
of  our  mental  organisation — the  "philosopher's 
romance" — they  seem  less  an  immodesty  than  a 
necessity  of  thorough  thinking;  they  are  a  part, 
and  surely  the  essential  part,  of  our  rational 
justification. 

However,  I  would  hasten  to  disclaim  any  elab- 
orate cosmological  intention.  My  plea  here  is 
merely  for  the  reader's  grace  for  whatever  impli- 
cations may  seem  to  transcend  empirical  grounds. 
Assuredly  I  do  not  conceive  that  I  have  estab- 
lished a  case  in  the  analyses  undertaken,  and  in- 
deed my  purpose  has  been  expository  rather  than 
argumentative  :  to  show  clearly  the  determining 
role  of  the  individual  factor  and  the  nature  of  its 
effectiveness  and  worth  has  been  my  aim.  But 
for  the  sake  of  final  understanding  it  seems  to  me 
essential  to  give  some  notion  of  the  relation  of  the 
individual  to  that  Nature  within  which  he  is  indi- 
vidualised and  by  contrast  with  which  his  indi- 
viduality has  meaning.  Only  by  such  addition 
may  the  given  conception  claim  rationality. 

In  the  militant  aggressiveness  of  the  imagina- 
tion, seizing  and  assimilating  the  unknown,  we 
perceive  the  spiritual  agent  of  Nature-conquest, 
and  in  the  growth  and  harmony  of  personality  is 


214     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

found  the  rationality  and  motive  of  the  aggression. 
Through  aggression  and  growth  the  outer  world, 
at  first  so  wholly  puzzling  and  foreign,  becomes 
known  to  us  and  becoming  known  serves  to 
reveal  us  to  ourselves.  It  becomes,  as  I  have 
stated,  the  parable  of  our  own  real  character,  so 
that  in  mastering  it  we  are  at  the  same  time  com- 
ing to  a  truer  understanding  of  the  extent  and 
significance  of  our  own  powers.  The  whole  fleet- 
ing world,  as  we  know  it,  is  but  the  painted  re- 
presentation of  actuating  impulses  and  energies. 
We  guess  this  not  merely  because  manifold  ex- 
pansions reveal  the  insufficiency  of  our  know- 
ledge, but  also  and  mainly  because  we  perceive 
that  there  is  no  possible  satisfaction  of  reason 
save  in  the  type  of  ideal  efficiency  (the  moulding 
€Mof)  which  personality  alone  affords.  Thus  the 
growing  power  of  reason  in  human  evolution  is 
but  a  growing  understanding  of  human  nature,  a 
deepening  insight  into  character  and  destiny. 

The  first  stage  in  the  evolution  is  the  crude  an- 
imism of  the  primitive  mind.  To  the  child  and 
the  savage  the  unfamiliar  world  is  all  agog  and 
agibber  with  outlandish  or  terrible  indwellers.  A 
bit  of  fur  is  to  be  caressed  with  sweet  trepidation 
or  it  is  to  be  piously  propitiated  as  the  totem  of 
feline  powers  ;  an  offending  thorn  or  pebble  is  mis- 
used in  spiteful  retaliation,  or  it  is  preserved  and 
guarded  as  the  prison  of  a  malevolent  will — best 
kept  under  one's  thumb!  The  natural  philosophy 
of  the  Iroquoian  tribes  teaches  that  every  object 


Nature  and  Poetic  Mood      215 

in  Nature — the  rocks,  the  trees,  the  streams,  each 
separate  plant,  the  winds,  the  tides — possesses  its 
ore?ida  or  magical  potency.  This  orenda  is  not 
allied  to  intelligence, — cunning  as  the  hunter  may- 
be, his  wit  were  of  no  avail  if  the  secret  power  of 
his  personality  did  not  exceed  that  of  his  prey, — 
neither  is  it  a  physical  quality;  it  is  essentially 
magical  and  exists  as  the  inevitable  consequence 
of  the  intense  dumb  striving  of  all  creatures  and 
things  after  their  own  well-being.  In  the  course 
of  this  striving  there  are  manifold  conflicting  in- 
terests, and  thence  arise  Nature's  unending  wars. 
But  the  Iroquoian  philosopher  finds  the  vital  con- 
flict not  in  physical  antagonisms,  but  in  an  unseen 
contention  of  instinctive  aspirations  wherein  the 
strength  of  the  combatant  is  measured  by  the 
blind  eagerness  of  his  desire  ;  behind  the  curtain 
of  sense  is  the  multitudinous  restlessness  of  ani- 
mating powers. 

In  this  primitive  natural  magic  there  is  no  con- 
ception of  a  world  ruled  by  incarnating  spirits. 
Everything  is  alive,  from  the  merest  pebble  to  the 
overarching  blue,  but  each  thing  lives  in  its  own 
distinctive  character ;  the  brute  fact  is  the  vital 
reality,  the  clay  of  the  fetich  is  pleasured  or  suf- 
fers in  its  own  intrinsic  quality.  And  not  only 
each  object  in  Nature,  but  one  might  almost  say 
each  moment  has  its  own  peculiar  passion.  There 
is  as  yet  evolved  no  conception  of  personality  ; 
there  is  as  yet  no  reasoning  and  no  will.  There 
is  world- vitalism,  but  it  is  engrossed  in  momentary 


2i6     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

whim.  Child  and  savage  have  still  to  grasp  the 
conception  of  character, —  even  for  themselves. 
Wholly  inconstant,  swayed  by  every  passing  de- 
sire, if  they  find  themselves  at  all  it  is  only  to 
realise  the  apotheosis  of  whim  ;  the  determinism 
of  reason  is  inconceivable  to  them,  and  the  articu- 
lation of  unified  and  harmonious  action  is  beyond 
their  perception.  Hence  reasons  for  reality  which 
mirror  their  own  inconstancy  seem  to  them  suffi- 
cient, and  power  adequate  to  desire  is  the  satisfy- 
ing equipment  of  deity.     Caliban's 

'Doth  as  tie  like,  or  wherefore  I^ord  ? 

denotes  the  foundation  of  their  natural  theology. 
The  second  stage  in  rational  evolution  is  per- 
sonification. Instead  of  conceiving  Nature  as 
endowed  with  ubiquitously  disorganised  life — her 
vitality  absorbed  by  the  flesh — the  objective  world 
is  taken  to  be  the  dwelling-place  of  myriad  per- 
sonalities. The  wind  is  no  longer  the  substance, 
but  the  breath  of  the  god  ;  the  lightning,  ceasing 
to  be  living  venom,  becomes  Jove's  thunderbolt ; 
the  deity  outlives  the  wrought  marble.  Nature  is 
a  vast  house  peopled  with  myriad  personalities, 
each  as  disjunctively  conceived  as  is  the  human 
personality  in  relation  to  its  bodying  clay.  Wher- 
ever there  is  an  abiding  reality  there  is  an  incarnate 
spirit ;  every  oak  has  its  Dryad,  a  Nereid  haunts 
each  stream  ;  Nature's  whole  intelligibility  is  due 
to  the  genii  who  make  her  their  domicile.     Where 


Nature  and  Poetic  Mood      217 

before  all  was  inconstancy  and  whim  there  is  now 
recognised  fixity  of  purpose ;  man  has  come  to 
consciousness  of  his  own  permanence,  and  reasons 
enlighten  him  only  as  they  bring  the  natural 
world  into  accord  with  his  better  conception  of 
himself.  As  he  learns  to  curb  impulse  for  the 
sake  of  ulterior  ends,  so  he  sees  behind  the  vogue 
of  Nature's  actions  evidences  of  lasting  character 
and  this  he  reconstructs  on  the  model  of  what 
seems  enduring  in  himself. 

At  first  the  personifications  are  recognisably  hu- 
man in  their  pattern  ;  they  are  full  personalities, 
and  the  world  is  composed  of  myriad  independent 
wills.  Gradually,  however,  gods  are  arranged  in 
hierarchies,  a  supreme  ruler  is  evolved,  and  the 
economy  of  Nature  becomes  a  closely  interlocked 
system  of  orderly  powers.  Thence  the  way  is 
clear  for  determinism,  which  whether  theistic  or 
mechanical  always  derives  its  necessity — and  its 
intelligibility  —  from  analogous  human  volition 
and  efficiency.  For  theism  the  cause  of  Nature 
is  the  divine  will :  omniscience  means  knowledge 
of  the  whole  course  and  destiny  of  the  universe; 
omnipotence  means  the  designing  and  creating 
power  which  brings  to  pass  this  destiny;  no  fact 
exists  save  as  predestined  by  divine  intelligence. 
Thus  the  universe  remains  a  habitation  but  one 
wherein  the  indwelling  personality  has  achieved 
such  utter  mastery  that  Nature  is  wholly  its  mir- 
roring counterpart ;  the  world  is  the  Divine  Im- 
age.    From  such  a  conception  it  is  but  a  step  to 


2i8     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

that  pantheism  which  identifies  God  and  the 
world — a  step  backward,  perhaps,  in  the  direction 
of  animism  and  magic,  but  one  natural  to  the  re- 
flective mind,  and  usually  taken,  in  some  guise  or 
other,  by  idealistic  philosophers.  From  this,  in 
turn,  it  is  but  a  step  to  mechanical  determinism. 
For  the  view  common  to  science  which  conceives 
the  universe  as  a  play  of  blind  but  inevitable 
forces  still  represents  the  volitional  ideal ;  though 
stripped  of  the  quality  of  knowledge,  there  is  still 
the  articulate  process,  with  all  its  machinery  of 
cause  and  effect  by  which  we  conceive  even  deity 
to  work  its  ends,  and  there  is  still  the  predestined 
history  and  termination  of  the  process ;  only  the 
foreseeing  purpose  is  lacking,  or  where  foresight 
is  at  all  attained,  as  in  the  narrow  compass  of 
human  knowledge,  it  is  relatively  helpless  and 
extraneous  ;  it  is  mere  knowledge  unaccompanied 
by  power  to  make  or  mar. 

It  is  needless  to  point  out  that  the  first  of  these 
views  is  rationally  the  more  satisfying  :  divine 
will  and  purpose  are  conceived  on  the  analogy  of 
the  more  complete  human  personality;  the  reason 
that  rules  the  universe  is  legitimised  and  made 
genuine  because  it  is  like  our  own  formulated 
reason.  Mechanical  determinism,  on  the  other 
hand,  is  constructed  on  the  analogy  of  an  im- 
poverished human  personality:  the  sequence  of 
events  is  compulsory,  but  it  is  blind;  only  such 
of  our  actions  as  are  mutely  automatic — 'actions 
that  seem  less  than  human — can  make  it  even 


Nature  and  Poetic  Mood      219 

partially  understood.  Morally  the  theistic  view, 
permitting  divine  interposition,  miracle,  encour- 
ages hope  and  faith;  but  mechanical  determinism 
necessitates  the  most  deadening  fatalism:  not  even 
within  narrow  mortal  limits  is  creative  efl5ciency 
possible  ;  there  is  left  nought  but  the  huge  sense- 
less engine  ;  the  gods  are  dead  and  vanished  but 
their  slow  mills  grind  on. 

Yet  the  rationality  of  determinism  belongs  to  a 
still  incompleted  evolution  of  self-knowledge ;  it 
is  founded  on  analogies  from  a  still  impoverished 
conception  of  personality.  Deterministic  Nature 
is  moulded  wholly  after  the  specious  conscious- 
ness. It  is  the  specific  content  of  the  world,  the 
veritable  phenomenon,  be  it  the  blue  of  to-day's 
sky  or  an  upheaval  of  some  long-dead  geologic 
era,  that  is  made  inevitable ;  the  representable, 
objective  facts  take  into  themselves  the  necessity 
of  the  natural  order,  and  they  form  the  centre  of 
its  significance  and  the  end-for-which  of  cosmic 
progress.  With  the  first  intoxicating  mastery 
of  dialectic,  the  human  mind  invariably  becomes 
enamoured  of  its  presentations;  the  image  and 
the  idea,  however  ephemeral,  seem  of  portentous 
birth,  and  the  elaborate  representation  which  we 
call  truth  seemingly  becomes  valuable  for  what  it 
is  rather  than  for  what  it  enables  us  to  do.  It  is 
to  be  expected,  in  such  stage,  that  the  essence  of 
rationality  should  be  found  in  the  object  sought 
rather  than  in  the  form  of  the  seeking  and  that 
the  end  for  which  the  world  exists  should  seem 


2  20     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

to  be  some  concretely  attainable  end  upon  reali- 
sation of  which  the  whole  cosmic  process  must 
cease  or  else  wearily  betake  itself  to  cyclical  repe- 
titions of  its  life  -  history.  Whether  the  end  be 
some  final  heaven  of  unvarying  bliss  or  the  dead 
inertia  of  a  finite  cosmos  its  analogue  is  the  leth- 
argy of  satisfied  desire  and  its  rationality  is  due 
to  the  weakness  of  a  satisfied  imagination. 

At  the  last,  determinism  fails  to  satisfy  because 
at  the  last  imagination  awakes  from  its  torpor. 
We  come  to  a  fuller  understanding  of  ourselves 
and  so  demand  a  superior  type  of  reason.  Per- 
sonality becomes  our  limiting  conception,  and  the 
form  and  character  rather  than  the  material  ob- 
ject of  activity  engender  intellectual  satisfaction. 
Nature  is  still  purposive,  but  not  necessarily  in 
the  deterministic  way.  She  permits,  nay,  demands 
freedom,  since  only  with  freedom  is  genuine  de- 
velopment possible.  The  purpose  is  not  centred 
upon  the  objective  phenomenon,  to  die  with  the 
attainment  of  the  definite  end;  the  end  is  but  a  buf- 
fer, making  possible  the  activity  in  which  alone  the 
purpose  is  realised.  I  have  tried  to  show  this  in 
its  conspicuous  human  instance — artistic  creation 
— where  the  real  raiso7i  d'Hre  of  the  art  is  the  im- 
aginative synthesis  and  the  consequent  enlarge- 
ment of  vitality;  it  is  for  the  sake  of  his  inspiration 
that  the  artist  works,  never  for  the  mere  achieve- 
ment. So  also  moral  action  is  valued  not  for  the 
concrete  instance  but  for  its  effect  on  moral  char- 
acter ;  the  end  is  only  seemingly  for  one's  fellows  ; 


Nature  and  Poetic  Mood      221 

in  reality  it  is  for  one's  ideal  of  social  conduct, 
and  so  for  the  '  social  individual,'  which  is  a  part 
of  one's  self.  Any  other  view  must  result  in  ab- 
surdity :  self-sacrifice  could  not  be  generically 
beautiful  if  we  conceived  it  to  be  literal  self-de- 
struction, for  that  would  involve  its  destruction 
of  its  own  genus  and  so  of  its  intrinsic  qualit}^;  as 
generic,  as  a  type  to  which  all  men  might  advan- 
tageously conform,  it  is  significant  and  beautiful 
only  when  it  means  development,  not  impoverish- 
ment of  human  character. 

That  there  may  be  growth,  there  must  be  free- 
dom; there  must  be,  that  is,  something  incom- 
mensurable in  the  process  of  realisation.  Here 
we  conflict  with  the  old  determinisms.  Neither 
rigorous  causation  of  the  mechanical  sort  nor  di- 
vine omniscience  is  compatible  with  any  real 
growth;  if  the  end  is  wholly  determined  from  the 
beginning,  there  is  no  real  attainment  in  its  out- 
working, but  only  repetition.  To  be  sure,  neither 
theology  nor  science  has  maintained  consistent 
determinism — the  one  allowing  for  miracles,  the 
other  for  a  *  tendency  to  vary, '  — but  these  are 
inconsistencies  rather  than  corollaries  of  the  type 
of  rationality  which  they  espouse.  In  order  to 
find  a  rationality  which  permits  of  real  growth 
we  must  resort  to  the  conception  of  impulse. 
Within  limits  it  is  free  ;  it  is  free  in  its  freshness 
and  self-surprise,  in  a  certain  errant  wilfulness  of 
mood,  and  its  power  to  create  impressions  ;  but  at 
the  same  time  it  is  determined  by  personality  to 


222     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

the  extent  that  it  is  not  permitted  to  be  inhar- 
monious without  being  self-destructive.  Consis- 
tency is  demanded  in  a  system  of  reasoning  based 
upon  impulse  just  as  much  as  in  reason  based 
upon  perceptual  presentations,  but  it  is  a  different 
kind  of  consistency ;  it  is  no  syllogistic  dove-tailing 
of  the  component  parts  that  is  required,  but  their 
congruity  and  a  not  immobile  harmony. 

Applied  to  Nature  such  rationality  sees  her  as 
embodying  whole  personalities,  akin  to  man's, 
and  existing,  as  he  exists,  less  for  the  sake  of  ma- 
terial realisations  than  for  eflSciency  and  growth. 
The  world,  too,  becomes  to  a  certain  extent  im- 
pulsive and  free,  though  with  a  freedom  tempered 
by  the  demand  that  the  impulses  create  a  coherent 
character,  not  at  all  with  a  freedom  permitting 
the  chaotic  inconsequence  of  primitive  animism. 
There  must  be  harmonies  (not  necessarily  peace- 
ful co-operations)  sufficient  to  create  in  us  single 
vivid  impressions  which  can  form  centres  of  refer- 
ence and  identification.  These  constitute  Nature' s 
personalities :  Greece,  Rome,  the  Renaissance, 
Christendom  and  Christianity;  or  again,  the 
herds  of  the  plain,  the  ocean,  the  stars ;  or  the 
soul  of  the  mob,  evolutions  of  species,  the  beauty 
of  the  wilderness ;  above  them  all  the  shadowy 
majesty  of  the  Universal. 

That  there  are  logical  difl&culties  besetting  this, 
as  every  other  abstract  conception,  I  will  not 
deny;  but  there  are  deliverances  that  more  than 
compensate.     Chief  among  these  is  escape  from 


Nature  and  Poetic  Mood      223 

the  oppressive  notion  of  the  fateful  necessity  of 
every  specific  content  of  the  world.  We  need 
no  longer  conceive  a  Divine  Intelligence  over- 
weighted with  prescience  of  infinite  destinies; 
rather  we  may  conceive  a  Divine  Personality 
evolving  with  a  real  and  puissant  growth,  veri- 
tably living  the  epic  of  the  world,  and  as  a  su- 
preme artist  eager  in  the  midst  of  creation.  At 
the  same  time  there  is  nothing  to  compel  us  to 
afi&rm  a  unitary  domination  of  Nature ;  there  is 
not  necessarily  one  supreme  Will  nor  one  all-inclu- 
sive Personality.  We  may,  if  we  choose,  be  poly- 
theistic pagans,  and  indeed  the  world  as  we  know 
it  seems  far  more  given  to  combat  than  to  concord 
of  wills.  Possibly  conflict  is  essential  to  its  de- 
velopment just  as  it  is  essential  to  human  develop- 
ment ;  we  gather  strength  in  adversity,  and  only 
by  the  rough  whettings  of  militant  experience 
may  the  keen  edge  of  character  be  maintained. 
In  the  supreme  beauty  must  be  something  of 
tragic  sorrow;  the  finest  moral  character  is  en- 
nobled through  passion. 

Nature  is  thus  a  vast  commune,  with  what  im- 
mortals in  Olympus  we  cannot  tell,  but  they  and 
we  together  are  building  the  world.  Our  effi- 
ciency in  the  process  is  determined  by  the  strength 
and  sincerity  of  our  ideals,  by  our  conscientious- 
ness and  faith  in  them.  It  is  only  when  we 
abandon  what  the  spirit  instinctively  creates  for 
us  and  choose  what  is  alien  to  our  genuine  na- 
tures that  we  fail;  for  whatever  the  imagination 


224     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

is  unable  to  conquer  for  us,  whatever  remains 
brutish  and  gross,  cannot  be  received  into  the 
spirit's  house  without  loss  of  that  personality 
which  is  the  essence  of  our  worth  in  the  order  of 
Nature. 

II — POETIC  INSIGHT 

And  now,  having  perhaps  attained  some  ink- 
ling of  the  r61e  of  personality  in  Nature,  let  us 
turn  once  again  to  its  expression  in  art.  Espe- 
cially there  remains  to  consider  that  highest 
quality  of  art  which  we  call  poetic  insight,  mean- 
ing thereby  a  peculiar  validity  which  makes  the 
poet's  knowledge  better  and  more  lasting  than  the 
knowledge  of  other  men.  Indeed  we  may  say 
that  poetry  owes  its  high  station  among  human 
activities  to  this  quality,  for  it  is  this  more  than 
all  else  which  compels  the  serious  respect  of  en- 
lightened minds  and  it  is  this  alone  which  gives 
to  poetic  utterance  the  enduring  dignity  of  truth. 

Pre-eminent  among  the  elements  of  poetic  in- 
sight is  the  spirit  of  prophecy.  With  the  more 
primitive  races  poet  and  prophet  are  one,  in  in- 
spiration, in  form  of  utterance.  Kach  is  supposed 
to  be  gifted  with  a  deeper  and  truer  knowledge 
of  Nature  than  falls  to  the  ordinary  lot,  and  this 
is  conceived  to  be  due  to  a  keener  sensitiveness  to 
Nature's  moods  and  to  a  readier  sympathy  with 
her  powers.  Knowledge,  in  the  primitive  un- 
derstanding, is  not  as  with  us  an  ideographic 
collocation  of  abstract  reckonings,  it  is  never  an 


Nature  and  Poetic  Mood      225 

assemblage  of  skeleton  facts,  but  always  a  living 
in  the  character  and  person  of  the  thing  known, 
with  sympathetic  identity  of  motive  and  will. 
The  wise  man  is  he  who  is  lifted  out  of  his 
proper  self  till  his  impulses  become  merged  with 
the  more  potent  desires  of  Nature  ;  feeling  these 
desires,  he  can  but  utter  their  intent  with  more 
than  mortal  authority;  he  loses  himself  in  the 
passions  of  the  world  and  so  attains  the  grandiose 
eloquence  of  prophecy. 

This,  I  say,  is  the  primitive  conception.  It  is 
based  upon  a  belief  in  possession,  not  so  much  by 
discarnate  spirits  as  by  natural  forces  and  moods, 
and  in  higher  developments  it  yields  that  august 
humility  characteristic  of  the  Hebrew  prophets, 
or  the  simple,  impersonal  faith  with  which  the 
great  poets  trust  the  vitality  of  their  inspirations  ; 
the  soul  is  caught  up  into  the  heavens,  it  gains 
the  gift  of  tongues,  and  phrases  unforeseen  divina- 
tions. Such  is  the  natural  theology,  inducing  in 
early  times  the  ambiguous  classing  together  of 
madman,  bard,  and  seer,  each  possessed  by  super- 
human wills.  It  is  not  far  from  this  to  personal 
inspiration.  The  monad-like  force  or  will  be- 
comes daemon  or  spirit  whose  mission  is  to  free 
the  utterance  of  the  poet  who  mediates  its  oracles. 
The  poet's  message  thus  becomes  personal  and 
individual,  although  the  personality  is  still  not 
recognised  as  his  own,  but  as  belonging  to  that 
higher  being  whose  voice  he  is.  Such  conception 
is  perhaps  most  typical  of  prophets  imbued  with 


2  26     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

a  mastering  sense  of  their  mission,  but  the  poets 
have  it,  too,  in  their  pagan  trust  in  the  Muses  or 
in  such  rare  and  deeper  adorations  as  of  Dante 
for  Beatrice,  Browning  for  his  poet-wife. 

In  the  art  itself  the  prophetic  quality  is  vari- 
ously shown.  Sometimes  it  is  open  and  avowed, 
the  poet  forgetting  to  be  personal  in  giving  tongue 
to  the  meanings  of  Nature.  This  is  the  mode  of 
Isaiah,  of  Vergil's  Messianic  Eclogue,  at  times  of 
Tennyson,  and  of  many  another  poet  in  strongly 
ethical  moments.  It  seems  to  spring  from  a  kind 
of  elevation.  Chance  and  accident  are  eliminated 
and  the  mind,  oblivious  to  its  own  aspirations,  is 
superbl}''  conscious  of  the  world's  more  masterful 
way.  Hence,  the  confident  finality  of  utterance, 
and  hence,  also,  the  sense  of  dignity  above  the 
mere  man's  which  forms  always  the  human  pre- 
face to  the  theme  and  may  even  set  the  pitch  of 
the  expression: 

Sicelides  Musae,  paulo  maiora  canamus  ! 

Let  us  exalt  our  song  ;  let  us  ennoble  the  spirit ; 
let  us  make  ready  for  the  advent ! 

lam  nova  progenies  caelo  demittitur  alto  ! 

Apart  from  prophecies  of  this  cosmical  type, 
there  are  others  with  a  personal  intent  :  Words- 
worth's Intimations  of  Immortality.  There  is  con- 
cern for  the  individual  soul's  salvation  ;  there  is 
an  eager  interest  in  the  prophetic  vision  ;  and  in 


Nature  and  Poetic  Mood      227 

the  mere  consciousness  of  its  enlargement  there  is 
implied  a  kind  of  perpetual  resurrection  of  per- 
sonality which  disregards  all  hampering  times. 

Our  souls  have  sight  of  that  immortal  sea 

"Which  brought  us  hither, 

Can  in  a  moment  travel  thither, 
And  see  the  children  sport  upon  the  shore, 
And  hear  the  mighty  waters  rolling  evermore. 

In  this  noblest  of  his  metaphors  there  is  more 
than  the  poet's  prophetic  assurance  of  immortal- 
ity ;  there  is  a  rare  benignity  which  is  the  sign 
of  an  unconstrained  individual  power ;  his  con- 
fidence we  feel  to  be  the  confidence  of  a  matured 
knowledge  and  self-command. 

Yet  it  is  not  in  literal  prophecies  that  the  spirit 
of  prophecy  is  most  manifest,  but  in  the  more 
subtle  and  universal  idealism  of  the  whole  poetic 
attitude — its  leaning  into  the  future,  its  pursuit 
of  the  magical  echoes  of  song,  its  adoration  of 
near-won  loveliness.  Prophetic  is  the  eager  as- 
piration of  Shelley's  IVesi  Wind,  the  wistful 
reverence  of  Burns'  To  Mary  m  Heaven,  even 
the  ache  of  balked  desire  in  the  bardic  vision 
of  winter: 

Mountain  snow — white  the  ravine  ; 

From  the  assault  of  the  wind  trees  will  bend  ; 

Many  a  two  may  mutually  love,  but  never  come  together.' 

In  all  lyric  mood  there  is  premonition,  and  its 
poise  is  ever  one  of  expectancy.     In  the  higher 
*  Skene,  Red  Book  of  Hergesi,  iv. 


2  28     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

poetic  developments  this  expectancy  becomes  per- 
sonal and  subjective,  and  with  our  fuller  analyses 
the  subjectivity  may  now  seem  but  the  subtler  ex- 
pression of  Nature's  creative  will.  It  marks  the 
growth  of  individuality  in  the  world  and  in  its 
prophetic  form  foretells  the  ceaseless  evolution 
of  ideal  human  types.  For  the  creation  of  these 
imagination  came  into  being,  and  in  them  Nature 
justifies  her  painful  bringing  forth  of  conscious  life. 

The  poet's  insight  frankly  acknowledges  war 
and  pain  to  be  inalienable  from  life  ;  there  is 
no  logical  dissimulation  ;  there  is  no  euphemistic 
honeying  of  the  fact  which  all  life  so  vigorously 
attests.  I  am  not  certain  that  poetic  mood  is  ever 
one  of  perfect  joy.  Even  with  the  most  primitive 
peoples  there  is  a  sense  of  the  world's  fleetingness 
and  uncertainty  penetrating  their  poetry  with  the 
poignancy  of  immemorial  music.  In  their  .song 
there  is  a  kind  of  eternal  pathos,  as  of  prayers 
travelling  infinite  journeys  up  through  dumb 
heavens. 

We  go  all  ! 

The  bones  of  all 

Are  shining  white 

In  this  Dulur  land  ! 

The  rushing  noise 

Of  Bunjil,  our  Father, 

Sings  in  my  breast, 

This  breast  of  mine  !  ^ 

'  A  native  Australian  song  arranged  by  Andrew  I^ang, 
Magic  and  Religion  (1901). 


Nature  and  Poetic  Mood      229 

Even  in  songs  of  pleasuring,  the  sportive  balladry 
of  village  lovers  or  greetings  to  glad  seasons,  there 
is  a  sense  of  immanent  sadness  never  wholly  to  be 
escaped : 

Lenten  ys  come  with  love  to  toune, 
With  blosmen  ant  with  briddes  roune, 
That  al  this  blisse  bryngeth  .  .  . 

In  the  very  freshness  of  the  delight  there  is 
pathos  ;  there  is  a  timidity  in  the  presence  of  joy, 
like  a  child's  delicate  awe  of  a  wonder-gift ;  and 
somehow  there  is  pain  in  it. 

Possibly  this  is  a  fault  of  our  own  character, 
cradled  amid  sad  wisdoms,  and  the  plaintiveness 
is  due  to  our  failure  to  achieve  the  ancient  mood; 
and  yet  there  seems  to  be  some  true  nativity  of 
sadness  in  the  mere  effort  to  perpetuate  a  joy  in  a 
frail  song's  phrase.  The  song  is  lost  in  the  sing- 
ing and  there  can  remain  only  its  echoing  mood 
and  the  sense  of  present  loss  which  echoes  bring. 
At  all  events,  for  us  the  sadness  is  instinctive, 
springing  perhaps,  as  in  all  beauty,  from  the  tan- 
talising elusiveness  of  its  charm  ;  and  it  is  only  in 
understanding  the  hopeless  ideality  of  beauty 
that  we  can  at  all  understand  the  strangely  su- 
preme significance  of  tragedy  in  art.  Almost 
from  its  first  creation  tragic  drama  has  been  per- 
ceived to  be  the  great  poetry,  and  it  has  attracted 
with  irresistible  magnetism  the  best  efforts  of  the 
poets  of  all  centuries  ;  it  seems  more  natural  to  the 
poetic  mind  than  comedy,  and  its  creation  easier. 


230     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

The  reason  is  not  merely  in  the  finer  symbolism 
of  tragedy,  but  in  its  peculiar  inclusiveness.  In 
tragic  beauty  are  not  only  the  ideality,  the  aching 
sense  of  sweetness  irretrievable,  and  the  prophetic 
aspiration  of  lyric  mood,  but  there  is  also  sense 
of  the  besetting  magnitude  of  Nature,  of  the  lord- 
liness of  the  world.  Of  all  that  he  can  compre- 
hend, man's  personality  is  the  measure,  but  there 
are  limits  to  his  understanding,  to  his  imagina- 
tion, and  so  in  the  end  he  is  darkly  aware  of  alti- 
tudinous  chaos  setting  boundaries  to  his  will ; 
human  intelligence  is  like  some  solitary  sun  striv- 
ing to  pierce  that  cosmical  gloom  which  no  reach 
of  its  rays  can  ever  sound.  With  us,  sense  of 
power  is  due  to  our  impotence  :  the  necessities 
which  determine  our  judgments  are  consequence 
of  the  final  failure  of  imaginative  potency;  we  are 
compelled  to  believe  where  we  can  no  longer  see 
alternatives,  and  all  our  positive  construction  is 
made  possible  only  by  the  finiteness  of  the  ma- 
terial wherewith  we  work. 

Realisation  of  human  powerlessness  is  what 
gives  tragedy  its  pain,  and  if  the  tragedy  rests 
with  this  it  is  pessimistic.  The  greatest  tragedies 
do  not  so  rest ;  the  greatest  tragedies  never  lose 
faith  in  the  inexhaustibleness  of  the  power  of 
idealisation.  It  is  the  distinguishing  mark  of 
pessimism,  not  that  it  does  not  idealise,  but  that  it 
surrenders  to  its  conception  of  human  weakness 
and  abandons  its  ideals  as  hopeless.  But  tragedy 
of  the  nobler  sort  never  accepts  defeat,  or  rather 


Nature  and  Poetic  Mood      231 

in  the  ordinary  defeats  of  life  it  recognises  the  one 
true  victory.  The  human  soul,  we  might  say, 
never  comes  to  its  own  until  it  has  undergone  the 
katharsis  of  tragic  sorrow.  In  all  beauty  there  is 
pain,  and  spiritual  beauty  is  not  to  be  won  save 
through  suffering. 

The  reason  why  death  is  the  fitting  end  of 
tragedy  I  take  to  be  the  fact  that  death  means  the 
final  supremacy  of  the  soul;  it  is  the  sign  of  the 
breaking  away  from  the  paltriness  and  hindrances 
of  mortal  days.  In  beauty  there  is  an  eternity 
of  promise  which  death  cannot  subdue,  and  the 
strange  calm  which  succeeds  the  spectacle  of 
tragic  dissolution  comes  not  from  a  sense  of  de- 
feat but  from  awe  of  the  fulfilment.  Where  the 
termination  is  not  physical  death,  it  may  still  be 
some  burying  of  the  old  life,  some  inauguration 
of  a  new,  having  promise  of  ideality.  This  is  the 
way  of  Ibsen's  DolV s  House.  The  defeat  of  hu- 
man happiness  seems  a  little  thing  in  comparison 
with  the  ideal  promise.  Even  in  that  most  pes- 
simistic of  his  plays  (though  Ibsen  is  not  a  pessi- 
mist ;  his  idealism  saves  him  from  that) —  even 
in  Ghosts,  there  is  in  Oswald's  cry — "  Mother,  the 
sun!  Give  me  the  sun!  " — a  suggestion  of  un- 
quenchable aspiration,  by  the  power  of  which  the 
pain  becomes  chastening. 

We  come,  then,  at  last  to  the  final  teaching: 
that  the  whole  worth  of  life  is  its  endeavour  to 
realise  what  seems  to  it  most  beautiful,  that  beauty 
is  as  much  in  the  aspiration  as  in  the  ideal  image, 


232     Poetry  and  the  Individual 

and  finally  that  all  realisation  is  but  in  renewed 
aspiring.  The  supreme  good  is  in  the  attitude 
and  in  the  desire,  in  the  eternal  seeking  and  the 
eternal  denying  of  fruition. 

Bold  Lover,  never,  never  canst  thou  kiss, 
Though  winning  near  the  goal  .  .  . 

In  the  love  of  beauty  the  first  kiss  is  a  thing  too 
sacred  ever  to  be  more  than  promised;  but  the 
promise  is  eternal. 

Yet  we  live  in  a  world  of  conflicting  personal- 
ities. Each  has  his  own  ideals,  each  grows  in 
his  own  way.  There  is  struggle  for  the  upper 
hand,  every  man  fighting,  as  he  must  fight,  for  the 
beauty  which  is  revealed  to  him,  and  by  strength 
or  weakness  conquering  or  being  overborne.  It 
is  idle  to  deny  the  sincerity  of  the  war,  or  that  its 
event  means  death  to  some  and  continuing  life  to 
others.  We  know  that  the  world  has  been  reared 
in  battles  and  nourished  by  blood.  We  must  ac- 
cept the  combat  as  our  birthright  and  the  one 
means  for  the  advancement  of  the  ideals  that  we 
serve.  Upon  our  faith  in  them  our  fates  depend, 
— upon  our  faith  and  upon  our  valiancy  in  ad- 
vancing whatever  cause  shall  be  for  us  the  holy 
cause.  It  is  not  likely  that  the  highest  beauty, 
for  which  is  the  whole  world's  yearning,  shall 
finally  fail ;  and  so,  being  convinced  of  our  reve- 
lation, there  is  no  other  need. 

Whence  arisen  I  cannot  now  say,  but  there  is  a 


Nature  and  Poetic  Mood      233 

bit  of  a  fancy  abiding  with  me  since  very  early 
years,  and  because  —  child's  parable  as  it  is  —  it 
has  seemed  to  bear  the  meaning  that  I  would 
have  this  book  bear,  I  cannot  forego  setting  it 
here  at  the  end. 

A  child  wandered  amid  springtime  meadows 
gathering  wild  flowers.  All  through  the  sunny 
hours  he  plucked  the  luring  blossoms,  delighting 
in  their  colour  and  sweetness.  But  as  the  day 
waned,  high  above  the  western  mountains  he 
beheld  the  bloom  of  a  richer  garden,  glorious  in 
hues  and  lights  such  as  embellish  no  earthly 
flower.  He  paused  forgetful  of  his  search,  and 
the  gathered  treasure  dropped,  unnoticed,  from 
his  hands.  In  his  eyes  shone  the  prismatic  radi- 
ance of  the  celestial  garden  and  his  body  grew  all 
atremble  with  the  eagerness  of  his  love  for  those 
far-shining  flowers.  So  he  set  out  for  the  en- 
chanted realm,  unwitting  the  weariness  of  the 
way  or  the  toil  of  the  long  ascent.  But  the  magic 
of  his  wish  bore  him  forward,  and  ere  the  dark 
portals  of  the  night  closed  down,  he  passed  the 
snowy  mountain  peaks  and  journeyed  on  into  the 
golden  sun-haunts  of  the  west.  But  the  journey 
and  the  pursuit  is  eternal  even  as  the  garland  of 
the  sunset  is  woven  without  end. 


INDEX 

Esthetic,  appreciation,  75,  127,  155-64;  attraction,  150, 
180  ;  creation,  I55#.;  experience,  194,  202  ;  impulse, 
180-82;  perception,  192;  satisfaction,  149-50 

Esthetics,  19,  146-52,  177 

Alexander,  J.  W.,  96,  97 

Animism,  214-17 

Appreciation,  iii,  119,  127,  150,  155-64 

Aristotle,  3,  98,  102,  103,  123,  133,  143-44.  169,  181 ; 
quoted,  99,  174 

Art,  appeal  of,  15  ;  beauty  in,  188  ;  criteria  of,  148,  163- 
64;  for  art's  sake,  58,  179;  imagery  in,  121,  131; 
method,  58  ;  motives  of,  \'j6ff.;  nature  and  office  of, 
I,  3,  19-25.  57-58,  81,  140,  143-45.  148,  224 ;  patho- 
logical, 151 ;  pessimistic,  60,  231 ;  spontaneity  of, 
16$  ff.;  universality  in,  90-105 

Association,  value  of  in  art,  122 

Ballad,  10,  11 

Beauty,  and  knowledge,  74,  80;  and  truth,  140,  148,  189; 
as  a  good,  80;  experience  of,  4,  181  ;  in  abstraction, 
161-62  ;  in  perception,  155-56  ;  judgment  of,  119,  207  : 
nature  of,  109,  123,  127,  187^.,  223;  of  poetry,  13; 
pain  in,  228-32  ;  Santayana's  conception  of,  146-48  ; 
sense  of,  5,  46 ;  subjective,  187-96 

Biology,  laws  of,  55-56 

BivAKE,  William,  128,  130,  168  ;  quoted,  129 

Browning,  Mrs.,  177,  182  ;  quoted,  175-76 

Browning,  Robert,  12,  36,  131,  132,  226  ;  quoted,  14, 
37,  66,  158-59,  216 

Burns,  227 

Butcher,  S.  H.,  99,  174,  note 

Byron,  14,  36 


Caedmon,  182-86 
Carlyle,  85 


235 


236  Index 


Cause,  Aristotelian,  102,  123,  169-70 

Charcot,  J.  M.,  130,  131 

Chaucer,  22  ;  quoted,  207-08 

Cherbui,iez,  Victor,  quoted,  133 

Chivalry,  33-34 

Consciousness,  character  and  function  of,  154-55,  172 ; 
duality  of,  126-27,  170.  173-75  ;  mob,  37  ;  mystic,  79  ; 
and  personality,  206,  210-11 ;  scientific,  54 

CoroT,  25 

CouRTHOPE,  W.  J.,  100-02,  145-46;  quoted,  too,  145 

Criticism,  and  consensus  gentium^  188-89  ;  function  and 
methods  of,  50,  162-64  5  metaphysical,  213  ;  on  mo- 
tives, 176-83  ;  and  the  problem  of  origins,  91-92 

Dante,  ii,  23,  226 

Dramatic,  attitude,  20;  composition,  166;  genius,  26; 
poetry,  11,  12,  22-26;  portrayal,  139,  209 

Emotion,  and  mood,  15  ;  as  a  good,  75  ;  in  imagination, 
141-52  ;  purpose  of,  142 

Epic  poetry,  lo-i  i 

Everett,  C.  C,  161 

Evolution,  55,  170,  181  ;  culmination  of,  68,  69 ;  epochal 
in  character,  29  ;  of  consciousness,  30,  214-21  ;  of 
mood,  20-37,  39  ;  of  types,  86-87  ;  principle  of  varia- 
tion in,  91,  iio-ii 

Fletcher,  Awce,  quoted,  16-17 

Ford's  Broken  Heart,  139 

Form  and  Formal  Cause,  75,  98,  102,  123,  169-70 

GauTier,  Th.,  174 

Genius,  22,  26,  93,  101-02,  in,  180 

Good,    criterion   of  the,   71-72  ;  social  ideals  of,  82-89 » 

types  of  experience  of  the,  71-81 
Grotesque,  Ruskin  on  the,  120-21 
GuMMERE,  Francis  B.,  177-78;  30,  note 
Guyau,  M.  J.,  quoted,  92-95,  134,  180 

HamerTON,  PHII.IP  G.,  quoted,  119-20 
Hamii^ton,  Sir  Wii^liam,  134 
Harmony,  aesthetic,  138 ;  conceptual,  139 
Hawthorne,  22 
Hedonism,  76-7S  ;  aesthetic,  142-49 


Index  237 

Henner,  J.  J.,  96,  97 

Hero,  10,  32-33  ;  worship,  85 

Heroic  age,  33-34 

Herrick,  25 

Homer,  ii,  22 

Homo  viensura,  54-56,  106,  230 

HUXI.EY,  T.  H.,  118 

Ibsen,  231 

Idea,  Platonic,  23,  47,  98,  99,  102,  169 ;  poetic,  12-14 

Imagery,  grades  and  kinds  of,  129-31 ;  imaginative,  116- 
23,  125 ;  influence  of  tlie  will  on,  123-25,  172 ; 
memory,  119-22 

Imagination,  appreciative,  15,  127-28  ;  and  speculation, 
57  ;  and  volition  123-25,  169-75  ;  creative  or  synthetic 
activities  of,  109,  116,  120,  125,  127-28,  136,  140,  164- 
68 ;  emotional  elements  of,  13,  141-52  ;  ideational 
elements  of,  134-41 ;  nature  and  office  of,  45,  106- 
15,  213,  220,  228  ;  presentational  elements  of,  116-34, 
155-64;  spontaneity  of,  165-68;  verbal,  131-33 

Imitation,  Aristotle's  theory  of,  3,  133-34,  181 

Impressionism,  25,  130 

Individual  and  individuality,  evolution  of,  5,  34-35,  37-41 ; 
and  nature,  112-13,  213  ;  in  art,  90-105  ;  in  society, 
82-89 

Inspiration,  22,  156,  210 

Introspective,  attitude,  21,  25-26  ;  mode,  35 

Isaiah,  226 

James,  Wii,i,iam,  142-43  ;  quoted,  129,  131 
Judgment,  119,  150,207,209-10 

Kant,  107,  135 

Katharsis,  143,  151,  231 

Keats,  78,  131 ;  quoted,  17,  232 

King  Ai<fred  quoted,  182-86 

Knowledge,  acquisitive  mode  of,  53  ;  ethical  meaning  of, 
67,  74-75  ;  interpretative  mode  of,  57  ;  Platonic  doc- 
trine of,  71,  158  ;  problem  of,  53  ;  processes  of,  109  ; 
poet's,  224 

Lang,  Andrew,  quoted,  228 
Language,  15,  131-33 


238  Index 


Life,  activities  of,  50-58,  64,  68,  69  ;  ideal,  57-58  ;  pessi- 
mistic view  of,  58-68;  poetry  as  divination  of,  43-49; 
values  in,  56-58,  67,  73-81,  87-89,  I93,  231-32 

L,ow,  Wii,i<  H.,  quoted,  95 

Lyly,  25 

Lyric,  "cry,"  48-49;  development,  11-12,  26-27;  mood, 
227-29;  the  modern,  34-37  ;  the  primitive,  9 

Mari,owE,  26 

Maupassant,  151 

Memory,  119-20 

Metaphor,  poetic  14-17  ;  a  quality  of  art,  137-38 

MiCHEivANGEivO,  25 

Mii^TON,  II,  24 

Mood,  7,  8,  18,  26,  224^  /  of  pessimism,  61 

Moral,  character,  73,  203  ;  ideal  in  religion,  79-80 ;  laws, 

77 

Mozart,  26 

Music,  appreciation  of,  156-57  ;  and  imagery,  131  ;  mo- 
rality of,  143  ;  of  poetry,  9-12  ;  unities  of,  137 

Mysticism,  79,  no,  173 

Nature,  civilised  view  of,  44  ;  design  in,  69,  212-24  ;  laws 
of,  54  ;  not  economical,  51  ;  pessimistic  view  of, 
66  ;  primitive  view  of,  31-34,  214-16 

Nietzsche,  85 

Objectification,  of  beauty,  146,  187-89,  195  ;  of  emotion, 

146;  of  images,  127  30 
Objective,  art,  18,19  ;  attitude,  20-23, 
Omar  Khayyam,    (Fitzgerald) ,  68,  78  ;  quoted,  60 
d'OrTigues,  J.  L.,  168  ;  quoted,  164-65 

Pain,  tragic,  144,  148,  229-31  ;  utility  of,  76 

Painting,  and  poetry,  24,  25  ;  imagery  of,  131  ;  unities  of, 

Pascal,  quoted,  138-39 

Personality,  quality  of,  1 14-15;  in  beauty,  81;  in  lyric 
poetry,  12,  40-41  ;  in  moral  character,  73  ;  in  nature 
217-24;  quality  of,  8,  38-39,  46,  196-211 

Personification,  216-17 

Pessimism,  24,  58-68,  230-31 

Philosophy,  57-58 


Index  239 


P1.AT0, 23,  47, 71, 98, 104, 158, 169,  206 

Pleasure,  aesthetic  value  of,  146-50 ;  ethical  value  of, 
76-78,  203 

POE,  12,  24,  37,  131,  176-77 

Poetic,  attitude,  18^.,  28,  227;  expression,  9,  28;  form, 
138 ;  idea,  12-14  ;  insight,  8,  139,  224-33 ;  inspiration, 
10,  22,  157,  176-86  ;  metaphor,  14-17,  138  ;  mood,  7, 
18,  26,  29,  224-33;  truth,  9,  13,  46;  vision,  13 

Poetry,  dramatic,  11-12,  22-26,  229-30;  epic  and  ballad, 
lo-ii  ;  individuality  in,  37-43  ;  lyric,  11-12,  26-27, 
34-37,  48-49,  227-29;  mental  imagery  in,  131;  mo- 
tives of,  176-83  ;  music  of,  9-12 ;  nature  and  office 
of,  4-5,  7,  13,  43-49.  224  ff.;  primitive,  9,  30,  225, 
228;  social  context  of,  30-37,  177-79  !  verbal  charm 
of,  132-33 

Pre-Raphaelites,  25 

Raphaei,,  25,  175 

Reason  and  imagination,  117-19  ;  processes  of,  149,  206, 

222  ;  the  sufficient,  205,  207 
Religion,  as  a  good,  75,  78-80  ;  types  of,  79 
Reverie,  156 

RiBOT,  Th.,  117,  note,  131 
Romance,  148-49 
Rubens,  140 
RUSKIN,  quoted,  121 

Santayana,  George,  146-48 

Science,  aesthetic  value  of,  135 ;  biological,  55-56 ;  me- 
thods of,  53 ;  office  of,  13  ;  social  character  of,  54 

Sculpture,  appreciation  of,  159-61,  209  ;  creation  of,  24 ; 
imagery  of,  131 

Shakespeare,  19,  22,  23,  26 ;  quoted,  40,  77 

SHEI.1.EY,  16,  36,  37,  44,  227  ;  quoted,  41-43 

Sidney,  Sir  Phii.ip,  25 

Skene,  W.  F.,  227,  note 

Social,  character  of  science,  54  ;  context  of  poetr}',  30-37, 
177-79 ;  function  of  art,  92-96  ;  ideals,  82-89 

'Social  individual,'  86-87,  i77.  221 

Socrates,  85,  130 

Socratic  method,  69,  71 

SOPHOCI,ES,  19,  22,  23 

SOURIAU,  Paui,,  quoted,  120,  159-61,  179 

Spencer,  Herbert,  135 


240  Index 


STEVENSON,  R.  L.,  22 

Subjective,  art,  i8,  19,  25  ;  attitude,  21-25,  34  J   character 

of  beauty,  105,  187-96,228 
Suggestion,  127-28,  165 
Summuni  bojiuni,  72,  82 
Swinburne,  12,  131 
Symonds,  John  A. ,  48 

Taine,  H.,  92;  quoted,  167-68,  174,  179 

Tennyson,  131,  226;  quoted,  36,  63,  132,  176 

Tragedy,  63-64,  143,  230-31 

Truth,  and   beauty,  140-41,   148,  189-90  ;  falsity   of,  29  ; 

function  of,  219 ;  ideal  character  of,    75,  191,  205  ; 

logical,  13;  of  art,  148;  poetic,  9,  13,  46 
Turner,  J.  M.  W.,  25 

Unity,  aesthetic,  134,  136,  207  ;  logical,  134-36,  207  ;  of 
apperception,  135,  137,  139 ;  organic,  198 

Universal,  and  particular,  162  ;  Platonic,  88 

Universality  in  art,  90-105 

Utilitarian  ethics,  72,  77 

Utility,  and  beauty,  192 ;  and  life,  56  ;  of  knowledge,  74, 
191 ;  of  pain,  76  ;  of  philosophy  and  art,  58  ;  of  sci- 
ence, 13,  53  ;  of  unity  in  thought,  135-36 

VERGII.  quoted,  226 

Ward,  James,  quoted,  135 

"Whitman,  Walt,  12,  35 

Whittier,  37 

Will,  and  imagination,  123-26  ;  and  personality,  202  ;  in 

aesthetic  creation,  164,  169,  ff.;  intellectual  elements 

in,  75;  of  nature,  214-24,  228 
Winchester,  C.  T.,  144-45  ;  quoted,  144 
WOODBERRY,  GEORGE  E.,  quoted,  102-03 
Wordsworth  quoted,  227 

Zoi,a,  168 


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